Blazing Glory and Pokegirls
by Talinmer
Summary: Pokegirls come to an earth under siege bringing their own struggles with them. Can they overcome the new threats and the old?
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes: I have been writing stories for my own entertainment for a while for now, but this is the first time I am presenting one for other people to read. I hope you all enjoy it and please let me know what you think and how I can improve the story and my writing.

Chapter 1

It started at the quantum level.

At first just a quark here, and a quark there, changing their spin and color borrowing the needed energy from atoms and molecules on this side of the barrier so they could come crashing through. Soon the quarks were followed by larger particles, electrons and protons, then neutrons and finally whole atoms and molecules.

As each particle, however small came through it borrowed energy from atoms and molecules on this side of the barrier; Proceeding to shove them out of the way at phenomenal speeds and in the process snatching away their loosely held electrons and smashing into nucleus' ionizing, polarizing and outright tearing apart particles as they went. The chain reaction of energy that ensued caused particles to decay, react, combine and repel.

An opening began to force its way into existence on a small alley behind the large buildings of a city on fire. The night was already lit with burning buildings and the lights of emergency vehicles and even the occasional arc of electric white lighting as it struck the blue defense shield of the planet overhead, or occasionally more fire where it penetrated the shield and landed in the city. As the opening rapidly expanded to over three meters in diameter the combination of rapid expansion, particle decay from stolen energy and forced fission created what can only be classed as a small nuclear explosion as the quantum tunnel was finally completed.

Out of this tunnel and into the newly formed crater ran almost a dozen figures a number of which were clearly overburdened with large rucksacks, backpacks and even some carrying large crates together between them. Others were clearly covering their escape firing gouts of flame through the opening or forming an array of ice crystals and accelerating them toward the unseen enemy. The unknown enemy was clearly not without fight, however as a bolt of lightning came arcing out of the tunnel striking a man carrying one side of a crate. It struck him across the back and he screamed in pain, dropping the crate and falling to the ground.

"NO!" yelled another figure. Kneeling down by the man the light from the disaster around them shown on their face revealing a beautiful woman, with long brown hair with streaks of blond in it, a sharp nose and almond skin and deep red eyes which were now filled with rage. She turned back toward the tunnel entrance, drew in a deep breath and summoned a massive pointed block of ice and sent it through the opening at incredible speed. After a moment the tunnel entrance began to lose cohesion and with a loud crack and a gust of wind it collapsed. The group of people were alone.

As they stood there looking at each other and breathing heavily, trying to gather themselves together the building they were standing next to begin to creak and sway. The building had been ruined by the blast from the tunnel creation and with no other warning than that it came crashing down burying all of them in rubble.

...

In the middle of a forest another tunnel opened with much less force and in a much less stable manner. A heavily wounded man stumbled through the flashing and flaring tunnel with a red and white ball in his hands. He has many more on his belt and a backpack on his back but he was not a young man by far. His balding pate and wrinkled eyes show the years. He stumbled forward muttering to himself as the tunnel slammed shut starting a few more trees on fire.

"You just wouldn't listen. I'm sorry my dear but I had to. We have to. They can't be allowed you know. Someone has to do it and you just wouldn't listen." He kept muttering to himself as he held his wounds with one arm, some of which still had shards of ice in them and kept talking to the ball in his hand.

He leaned against a non-burning tree with his back and slowly slid down it. He gently pressed the red button and a beam shot out. A woman, of sorts materialized from the beam. Auburn hair fell down to her shoulders but floppy yellow and black striped ears did as well. Except for her face and neck she was covered in a pale yellow fur over most of her skin and she had a yellow tail with a kink in it that looked like someone had slammed it in a door to hard. She was wearing a loose red dress with a purposeful cut up one leg and a cloth belt tied around her waist and tall black boots. Her eyes were crystal blue and they began to pool up with tears as soon as she saw what was happening.

"You old fool!" She cried. "I told you not to do this. We needed to stay and get you healed! Are you even listening to me?" She shook his shoulder but he didn't move. She shook him again. He wouldn't move.

"Don't play with me old man. This isn't the time!" she shouted and shook him even harder, but he just flopped as she shook him.

"Don't play old man!" She shrieked through her sobbing tears as the man lifelessly fell over. She buried her face in his slowly cooling chest. "Don't go! Don't leave me here! What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to fix this?"

As streaks of red filled the sky as things began to fall from space and the world around her appeared to be ending, she could not bring herself to care, or even notice really. All she could do was sob into the chest of the man she loved and wonder why.

...

Commander Patrick Lewis' eyes snapped open with a forceful jolt. The acceleration pushed him back into the seat and the blackness was only broken by the soft lights of the instrument panel, which in his dazed state he couldn't yet focus on. Suddenly the blackness burst into a dense star field, distorted with explosions and moving ships of every shape and size dancing all around. As the commander's head began to clear what was happening started to come back to him and he looked over his shoulder in horror to see the TSS (Terran Star Ship) Warspite impacting the alien mother ship in its bow. The very place where it kept the reactors that powered the world-cracking electric white beam that was still firing at the Earth.

The Warspite, was the flagship of the human defense fleet, and through a very unfortunate set of events had been under Patrick's command for roughly the last twenty minutes. She was true to her namesake and had taken a huge beating but had never stopped firing her guns. Even now her rear primary and secondary batteries were still blazing away. But now she was giving her last and as the commander watched the damage finally took its toll and she started to break apart amidships, the engines still pushing with all their force splintering the ship and pushing its hard bow farther and farther into the enemy vessel. The electric white beam flickered and blinked and then went out.

Patrick cried.

He cried for the ship that had been his home for these last few years.

He cried for the friends that were still aboard her, one of whom lost their life putting him in this pod. And whose name he would never know.

He raged.

He slammed his fist on the transparency and screamed. His fury at the ever shrinking image of the two ships locked in their twisted embrace did nothing to disturb the silence of space.

Then the mother ship exploded sending the aft end of the Warspite spinning into space, one engine still running throwing the spin vector off wildly, obliterating a human destroyer as it went. Suddenly urgent collision warning alarms went off and Patrick jerked his head around just in time to for the pod to be slammed into by hurtling debris and sent it spinning. His head slammed against the side of the pod and he blacked out again.

The pod's autopilot began to recover from the spin and set the pod back on a survivable decent to the surface. By the time Patrick had once again opened his eyes his course had returned to a steady one. He checked his displays, noting a good water landing, before looking out at the space around the pod.

What remained of the white electric energy from the alien planet cracker was still arcing across the planet bouncing off the last of the Earth's defensive shield and playing through the planet's magnetic field. The defense shield was done for. He could see most of the places where the generators used to stand on the surface, nothing more than pillars of fire now. However they had served their purpose and that was enough, they could be rebuilt.

Patrick looked around and saw a number of other pods falling through the atmosphere around him. They had lost a great deal today, but not everything. There were survivors and they could rebuild, hopefully before the enemy returned in force.

As the barrier to the mesosphere was crossed red heat began to build and blocked Patrick's view of the planet below. The red was mixed with the electric white of the arcing energy and the dying blue of the defense shield as he fell; the buffeting started to make his teeth rattle. With little else to do the pain of his injuries finally began to come back. Head, abdomen, leg, lightheadedness from blood loss and a possible concussion... he was a bit of a mess. He laid his head back against the seat for a moment and just tried to breath. It hurt.

Somewhere about the top of the troposphere the heat began to die down and visibility began to increase again. Just about that moment the sun crested the horizon of the Earth in a beautiful display of light that is one of those things that reminds so many people why they go out into space in the first place. Dimming his windows a bit so that he could see the instruments Patrick started to concentrate on the landing. The atmosphere was slowing the craft down well enough for landing. Only he suddenly noticed that he was no longer on track for the water landing the computer originally plotted. For some reason the destination was now a large mountainous region he didn't recognize. That was going to be a problem, he realized, because he was going way too fast for a high altitude ground landing.

Just as Patrick was considering what to do about this the retro-rockets kicked in with the last remaining fuel. When they sputtered dry the pod began tipping for maximum aero-braking, but the realization was coming fast to the commander that even this was not going to be enough to slow down so the emergency parachutes could be deployed without destroying them. Taking manual control he began to force the pod around to bring it parallel with the mountain cliffs.

The pod aft end impacted with a mountain top first nearly flipping it over and snapping his neck forward against the seat restraints. Banking hard the last few degrees to pull into the valley the craft dropped quickly down into the trees and nosed up. As trees began breaking the commander desperately gripped the controls of the pod just trying to keep from biting down on his tongue. Finally the nose wouldn't stay up any more and the whole pod dropped to the ground scraping along decapitating trees at an incredible speed. With a sudden screaming of metal and a gut wrenching lurch the pod hit a large rock and was thrown into the air and for the third time that day he blacked out.

...

Hefting the backpack higher on her shoulders the woman in the red dress tightened the straps a bit more. Then she fiddled with the belt with the red and white balls and shuffled her boots in front of the large pile of stones she had set up.

"I'm sorry old man. This is the best I could do for you. You deserved better. You deserved better than I could give you. Of all the tamers out there you were a pretty good one. Oh you had your moments old man, make no mistake!" She said shaking her dirty hands at the stones with a small smile and tears in her eyes.

"But you are mine and I love you… I'll protect the rest as best as I can. I don't know what this place holds. And I know you wanted to go on with the mission so I guess I'll try that too." She sighed deeply.

"This is all a lot to put on someone's shoulders all of a sudden. You should really be here. I miss you already. But I have to go now. I'm not sure where, but I have to start finding people and figuring things out. Maybe if I get a chance I'll come back someday." She wiped the tears from her eyes only managing to make smears of dirt across her face and turned away into the forest, her sturdy boots gripping the terrain with a firmness she did not feel.

...

He tried to open his eyes but it felt like his eye lids were glued shut. Something hard and a little sticky was making it hard to open his left eye and almost impossible to open his right. His head felt like he had an ice pick though his brain. He tried to move but didn't get far. Something was holding him in place. He was starting to get annoyed… a lot. Patrick started to swipe and rub at his eyes with his fingers, well one set of fingers anyway. Finally his eyelids creaked open and he started to slowly look around, his pupils struggling to focus correctly.

Where ever he was, the sun was still up. The window transparencies had left their shattered remains all around what was left of the escape pod. However the dull edges of the broken material meant that he had very few lacerations. I have got to remember to look up who invented this material and give them an award, buy them a beer… something, when I get back to civilization, Patrick thought to himself. He looked down at his chest and saw the four pronged seat belt holding him to the seat that while still in the cockpit had managed to break free of the pod in the crash. He tried to move his right arm to unbuckle himself but it did not respond. He glared at it as if that would somehow convince it to move.

After a few moments he lost the glaring contest with his immobile right arm and used his left to twist the buckle and free himself. Struggling to get up and out of the pod, he fell down many times as the chair itself was unstable beneath him, his own legs were exhausted and wounded and the pod was torn apart by the less than graceful impact. He returned to glaring at his right arm for a moment before taking a running start at a buried portion of the pod. His shoulder made a loud pop and he roared in pain. However his right arm began to respond once more, though a bit slowly. Patrick massaged his right shoulder and took at seat with his back against the pod to rest for a bit after what felt like a monumental effort of just getting free of the wreckage.

He noted with some humor that most of the trees around him had a way of melodramatically leaning on their sides. For some reason this was most hilarious to Patrick at right that moment. He wasn't sure if this was a sign of his injuries or because it was just damn funny but he figured it couldn't hurt to have a good laugh after all he had been through so he let himself go on about the trees for a while.

After he had rested for a bit and had a good laugh at the expense of the local fauna the commander decided it was time to start seeing what supplies had survived the crash. With no small amount of effort and pain he heaved himself off the ground and began his search. It proved fairly profitable as such searches go. He was not without food and water, warm clothes, extra rounds for his sidearm, something with which to make a lean-to against the wreckage and various other odds and ends. He did manage to find the emergency rescue locator beacon, destroyed of course. He brought the pieces of that along just in case he might be able to perform some electronic magic on it at some point.

After a few failed attempts at making the lean-to work, Patrick finally got his temporary shelter to be strong enough to withstand the local winds. As he looked around he could see that he was still fairly high up on the mountain, not too far from the upper tree line. It was going to be a cold night for sure. He limped around on his bad leg and put his meager supplies in his 'tent' and began making a fire as the sun slowly began to set. Well attempting to make a fire anyway, he said to himself. All of the trees around were fairly young and most of the wood he had gathered was too green to burn easily. The kindling he could find was damp and the box of matches he was supposed to have in his kit was nowhere to be seen. So here I am rubbing a stick between my hands in the hopes of getting a small spark so I can get something going before I die of frostbite. Patrick sighed.

"You um… you seem to be having a problem there."

Patrick pulled his sidearm and froze, his eyes having a hard time seeing into the trees in the twilight. Slowly our auburn haired, blued eyed, yellowed furred woman peeked out from behind a tree off to his right and put her hands up at shoulder level. He shifted his aim in her direction and she slowly came out from behind the tree and taking a few tentative steps closer.

"So yeah you look like you're kinda having an issue with your fire there." She said pointing with just her hand at Patrick's awkward attempt at fire making and raising her eyebrows. Patrick's eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. I think my head injuries might be catching up with me, Patrick thought to himself.

"The fire was coming to see things my way. I just needed to explain a few more things to it." Patrick said still keeping the firearm level.

"Really? The fire seems unconvinced to me. Do you mind if I try arguing with it for a bit?" The woman smirked a bit at the discussion.

"Go ahead. I'm not sure how much luck you'll have. I was pretty convincing." Patrick backed away from the almost-fire and sat with his back against some wreckage, his gun still pointed at the woman.

She lowered her hands and crouched down in front of the fire with her back to the man, gathered a small pile of kindling, looked over her shoulder at Patrick quickly to make sure he was still there, and then let a small jolt of electricity leap from her hands to the small pile in front of her until it started to smoke and smolder. When little red tongues of flame began to show she slowly fed larger and larger pieces of wood into the fire until she had a proper campfire going. She then stood up and waved her hand proudly to the fire and giving a toothy grin.

Patrick, meanwhile had been eyeing the crooked yellow tail as it swayed back and forth. They did warn us about hallucinations from head injuries but this is a bit over the top. Does this reflect something about me that I would imagine such things? And yet I can't stop watching that kinky tail…

His eyes jerked up as she stood up and presented her crackling fire. He looked from the fire to the proud look on her face and sighed. He did not smile back. Patrick holstered the gun as a wave of exhaustion washed over him.

"What's your name?" He asked.

She looked a little surprised at the sudden question. "My name? Oh it's Paige."

"Do you have a last name Paige?"

"Um…" She suddenly looked very uncertain "Well… not that I know of anyway." She looked away in an embarrassment and shame showing on her face.

"Is that so…" Patrick gave her a hard look and Paige would not meet his eyes.

"Hmmm. Ok we'll table that one for now Paige. Rather, on to the really pressing question as far as I'm concerned. Are you or are you not, a figment of my imagination?" Patrick asked.

Paige stood there and blinked, totally blindsided by the question. "Huh?!" Was all she could muster.

"I thought the question was pretty self-explanatory. Are you real or am I making you up because of the number of times I bumped my head on the way down from space?" The commander repeated.

She looked at him for a moment and her eyes softened as the scene before her finally registered, the devastation of the forest, the wreckage of the pod and the battered man that came from it.

"You really are a mess aren't you Mr…?" She said as she knelt down and put her hand on his forehead and looked at his slowly focusing green eyes.

"Commander Patrick Lewis of the Terran Defense Forces. Commander, NOT mister, thank you very much. You may call me Commander, or Patrick if we are being informal." He said with what he hoped was dignity.

"Alright Patrick, do you have any medical supplies and water around here? Maybe something to boil the water in?" Paige said in what she hoped was a firm but gentle tone.

"Everything I could salvage is in the 'tent'." He said using air quotes around tent. "I don't think we should be boiling the water though. We will probably need to conserve that as we don't have much of it."

She shed her backpack and laid it by the 'tent' and began to rummage through the supplies. Great, from one wounded man to another, she thought to herself. I hope this one doesn't die on me. "Yeah you're right there isn't nearly as much water as I'd like here." She called back out. After opening a few of the various bags Paige found the one that had the medical supplies. She grabbed a canteen of water and went back out to where the commander was putting another piece of wood on the fire.

She set the items down and swept her red dress under her knees as she knelt down next to the commander. "Ok Patrick, let's start with this mess on your head." Paige said using the canteen to wet a cloth and begging to scrub away the dried blood to find the wounds as gently as she could.

Paige's close proximity made the commander a little uncomfortable at first but as she worked he looked closely at her face and saw the dirt on her cheeks had clear tracks where the tears and run down them cleaning a path to her chin. This gave Patrick pause as he considered what could have been the source of the tears.

"Here don't forget the anti-bacterial cream." Said Patrick as Paige was beginning to bandage his head. "That should keep anything from getting infected." He handed her the tube.

As she began to dab on the cream she looked at him and gave him a serious look.

"So I hope by now you've realized I'm not a figment of your imagination." She said.

"Figments of my imagination don't hurt this much." Patrick quipped back.

"Wimp." She said as she again started bandaging his head. "So… I'm guessing you said that because you've never seen a girl like me before. Am I right?" Paige said trying to keep an even tone and a straight face.

This girl should never play poker, Patrick thought to himself. "Paige, I have been fighting an alien race with an incredibly high polymorphism of their genetic structure for years now, so to be blunt, I've seen a lot of shit. But I have still never seen anything like you."

"I'm… not really sure what that means but ok. Also you need to take off your suit so I can get to your leg and gut wounds." She said.

The commander began to struggle out of his anti-decompression suit, which was just what it sounded like. It was a suit designed for the unfortunate case that you should be sucked out of a space ship in the hopes that you might actually have a chance of surviving the trip.

"So… how do you know I'm not one of these aliens then." She asked as she tried to wrap the bandage around his thigh, failing to keep her hands from shaking.

"It was a hunch mostly, but I didn't have proof until a few minutes... ago." Patrick said as he winced as she pulled the bandage on his thigh tight.

She looked up at him with a questioning gaze and paused with her ministrations. "Proof?"

"Yes proof." He said as he looked deep into those crystal blue eyes. "You've been crying. I don't know what about, but that is something those aliens don't know how to do. They don't even comprehend it much less know how to program something how to do it. Crying like what you've been doing is a very human thing."

"A human thing…" Paige said as her eyes went wide at being referred to as human for the very first time in her life. As she looked at the compassion in the commander's eyes the realization began to creep over her that this new world may have possibilities for all of her kind that she had never even begun to dream about before, and the thought almost blew her mind.

...

The emergency personal were still digging through the rubble of the building when the EMTs drove up in their tank like ambulance. They stopped so there was clear access to the back and got out. The darkness was punctuated by the flashing red and blue lights as they got out their gurneys and bags full of quick use supplies and started to walk toward the piles of rubble and the fervently working diggers. The man and woman did not alter their bored looks as their eyes scanned over the seven bodies already covered and not moving.

As they approached the rubble the woman tripped and fell with a grace that she had a reputation for.

"Sonofa…" she said as she went down hard.

"And there she goes again." Said the man. "It's a good thing you ain't this clumsy when you're working on the patients Jamie. Cause we'd end up with a lot more dead'uns."

"Shut your hole Dennis!" said Jamie as she laid her hand on the offending item that caused the tumble. As she held her hand up to view the small red and white ball all she could say was, "What the fuck is this thing?!"

"Who gives a shit Jamie? I'm gonna go find out if they actually have any WARM bodies around here or if we can get goin already. You just go ahead and lie there for a while. I know what they say about you back at the barn." Dennis started to snicker as he walks away.

"Get bent!" Jamie said as she pocketed the ball and got up to follow Dennis.

Running up beside Dennis, Jamie looked on as the diggers shouted excitedly to each other and started lifting out of the rubble.

"Looks like they actually got somethin." Dennis said.

A few minutes later Dennis and Jamie had two barely breathing bodies, both women on gurneys and wheeling them back to the ambulance. As they put them both in the back and Jamie began her work, Dennis was already climbing in the front. They drove away over rubble strewn streets of a hard hit city as fast as they could knowing full well that the two in the back were going to be lucky to get any help no matter what speed they drove. The whole city needed help today.

...

Cora first noticed the noise. It was echoing off the ceilings and walls of whatever room she was in and it was damned annoying. The next thing she noticed was that 'The Bond' was missing, her tamer was dead. THAT snapped her eyes open with a jolt. The bright lights from the high ceiling bombarded her making her squint her red eyes against it. She did not cry but a feeling of sadness overwhelmed her for a few moments. She said a few words for the soul of the lost quietly to herself, but in the tradition of the yukiohna, she did not mourn long. After all, she was in a new and potentially hostile world and that made survival and information a priority.

As she scanned the room what she saw shocked her. She came from a violent and brutal world but even then she had never seen ruined bodies on this scale before. The room was large with orange metal circles that had cloth nets hanging from them suspended in the air at either end. Despite its size the room was completely packed with suffering people, none of whom were complete, even the ones who were attempting to give aid and care. Cora realized even she had just been leaned unceremoniously against a wall. The noises she had been blocking out began to penetrate and she cringed as the moans of pain, the screams, the cries for help or the pleading for someone to end it all echoed back and forth against the walls.

I have to get out of here. She said to herself, wide eyed at the scene. She had received basic some basic aid for her injuries at some point but one leg was just not responding very well. It was splinted and wrapped but stiff and in pain.l Cora began to pull herself standing arm over arm. Leaning on whatever she could find she began to make her way painfully to the closest door she could see. Halfway there she fell face down on the shiny wooden floor. Looking toward her feet she saw that she had slipped in someone's blood that hadn't been cleaned up yet. With a look of disgust on her face she slid away from the mess and started her procession back toward the door. Reaching it she hit the crash bar and flung herself out into the darkness gulping deep breaths of the tangy, ash filled air.

Outside revealed itself to only be slightly less hellish as the lights and sirens of emergency vehicles filled the thick, smoke filled air. The night was lit by a city on fire everywhere Cora looked.

The door opened a second time and a bandaged figure stepped out. "Cora? It's me Dawn."

"Dawn… Oh thank god." Cora said with a loud sigh. "What kind of a world have we come to?"

"A world in trouble by the looks of it." Said Dawn. Her arm had been tied up, clearly broken and her head and left eye heavily bandaged, though her pink hair still poked through.

"Are you still bonded?" Cora asked. Dawn shook her head. "Me either. I wonder if anyone else made it."

"I don't think so. I woke up on the way here and talked to the girl who was giving us first aid. She got a count of the dead bodies that were dug up. It wasn't enough to account for everyone but it was most. I'm guessing we are the only survivors."

"I don't suppose you got the girl to tell you where the rubble that has all of our buried stuff is?" Asked Cora hopelessly.

"Of course I did." Said Dawn holding up a little piece of paper and grinning big. "She wrote down the location for me. It doesn't make any sense to me but I'm willing to bet with a bit of work on our part we can ask around and figure out the location system they use here and get back to it."

"Well then there isn't much point in us hanging around this scary ass place anymore then is there?" said Cora with a wicked grin, and they both started to limp slowly away from the building arm in arm.

...

Paige and Patrick sat next to each other close to the fire, Paige now dressed in the emergency cold weather gear from the pod, a green pair of pants and a heavy jacket wrapped around a thick cotton shirt. Patrick, now nicely bandaged and feeling better with pain meds and antibiotics, was tinkering with the broken locator beacon and some various other broken electronics.

"Whatcha doooooin?" said Paige as she leaned over and looked at the work curiously.

Patrick smiled slightly. "I'm trying to fix the locator beacon so someone will come and pick us up, unless you want to stay here in the forest forever. In that case, I'm working on the locator beacon so someone can come and pick me up." Patrick said playfully.

Paige thought about this seriously for a few minutes while Patrick continued to work.

She gave him a hard look. "If I go with you, how will everyone react to me?"

He paused his work and looked seriously at the electronics. "I'm not going to lie to you Paige. We are a planet at war. If people think you are an agent of our enemy they will kill you. If people believe that you have power that can help us win this war, there will be groups who will try to steal that power from you, by any and every means they can and not ask any moral or ethical questions while they do it. BUT, not everyone will be that way."

"And what about you? What will you do when we get back to civilization?" She asked her voice hardening a bit.

His face became stern but he turned and looked her full in the face, staring into her eyes.

"Paige, the human race, our back is against the wall here. We need everything we can get just to survive. So those desperate people who will do anything, a part of me can understand them. I'm desperate too. I'm scared for my world and my people. But if we abandon who we are along the way, then we've lost the war just as surely as if we died. So here's the deal, you have my word that I will never take anything from you that you do not freely offer."

Paige didn't react for a moment; she just looked at him thinking about what he just said. She tilted her head slightly to the side, her auburn hair and her long yellow and black ear getting caught inside the collar of the heavy jacket as she did.

"Your word huh? It's been my experience that the word of a man isn't worth very much."

Patrick's jaw clenched at that statement and he looked down. "I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately my word is the only thing of value I have to give anymore."

She paused again and then finally gave a small smile. "Then I guess I have to accept it."

Patrick finally let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding and smiled a little bit. He started going back to work on the locator beacon. Before too long he had cobbled together enough parts and pieces that he wasn't cursing at it anymore.

"I think it will probably work now, though I won't know until I can find a place to charge these batteries." He said as held them up.

"Here let me see them." Paige said.

As they dropped into her hands she wrapped her fingers around them and her hand began to spark and crackle with electric charge. Patrick's eyes went wide as he saw the arcing and lightning around her hand continue for a minute before calming down. She dropped the batteries back into his hand.

"There, they should be charged now." Paige said.

He looked from the batteries to Paige and back again a few times. She smiled and nodded encouragingly. He pushed them into the locator beacon and locked them in place. The beacon flared to life and Patrick looked over at Paige his eyes wide. She took his hand.

"Patrick, you seem like a nice enough guy, and I don't mind helping you out and stuff… but I really don't want to be someone's lab experiment." She said looking at him searching his eyes.

Patrick's heart thumped for a second.

"What you are wearing should cover your fur, but you are going to need to do something about that tail." He reached behind him and rummaged the bag full of winter clothes and pulled out a fur lined hat with ear covers that ended in a chin clasp. He put the hat on her head and pulled it all the way down, ear flaps and all. Then he tucked her long ears back up into the hat, her hair still spilling out under it.

"There, that looks pretty good on you I think. Guess you'll be wearing a lot of hats."

...

In the space around Earth, sporadic firing of the main guns continued from the surviving ships of the defense fleet as they found any enemies that escaped notice as the search and rescue teams finished their work. They had been out for hours now and all that was coming back at this point were cold bodies. The salvage teams were starting to work their way out into the debris field to begin the slow process of cleanup and recovery. Operable ships were beginning rest and recover shifts so their crews could get some sleep and were towing ships that could be repaired back to the yards. Tenders were coming alongside those same ships while in route to resupply and rearm them should they need to go back into action quickly, heaven forbid. Fighters, pickets, patrol boats and other small vessels were finding any berth that would hold them, or even making their way to the surface to refit and repair as required.

The S&R teams were going to their rest and would continue operations for the earthbound pods after some sleep. The Admiralty had not gotten out of the battle unscathed. The command station that was posted in defense of the shipyards in orbit of earth was also Terran Defense HQ, home of The Admiralty, and the strongest defensive location the human race still possessed. Its guns took part in the battle and it weathered the storm but it too would require a great deal of repair before it was back in full pfighting trim. As for the list of admirals inside of it, well it was a much shorter one now. The ones that remained were counting the day's cost.

All five admirals in the conference room showed signs of comprehending the implications of the data scattered about on the table in front of them, whether it was a head lolling back staring at the ceiling or staring down at the table between their hands, or pacing fiercely, or fists clenching and unclenching in anger, or just plain staring into nothingness. There is no doubt that all of these men and women displayed personal valor and courage in the battle. None of them were without injury and all of them had earned the right to survive that day. But the burden of leadership did not let them rest until they had counted the bodies, counted the ships, considered the future and decided what to do next.

The man clenching his fists slammed them on the conference table making the data pads skitter, one of them falling on the floor. All of the admirals look at him.

"We can't even defend Earth with what we have left!" He practically shouted.

The pacing woman stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. "George, we can at least be fairly certain that they don't have another fleet that size to throw at us. They are going to need time to rebuild as well."

"They still rebuild faster than we do Iona." Said the man staring at the ceiling without moving.

"We just take to many losses for each ship we kill. We need to make our ships count for more. Change our tactics." Said the woman staring into nothing.

"God how many times are we going to have this same conversation?!" said the man with his head in his hands.

"Honestly, I think Fai is right." Said Iona. "We have gone around and around and come to nothing. We are all wounded, exhausted and emotionally drained from all that we have lost today. In the short term all that needs to be done is being done. Let's get some rest and re-visit this with clearer heads."

With not even token resistance the admirals all got up and filed out of the room. Tomorrow was another day for humanity. That, at least, had been won.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:** First off allow me to apologize for the slow update rate. I am a slow writer to start with and I have been working many overtime hours at work lately. Secondly if anyone has any comments on the story so far please let me know. Love it? Hate it? With I would burn in a fire and die in a hole? Let me know!

Chapter 2

In the morning sunlight the C-172 surface to orbit cargo carrier skimmed over the mountain tops following the beacon signal. The crew scanned the ground from their various vantage points around the craft. The rear was already full of rescues they had picked up from downed pods all over the area. Some of the rescues were injured, some were not. None of the injuries were life threatening, those who were had their beacons called in and were picked up by much faster moving craft. The co-pilot pointed out the scar in the landscape and the craft tilted over toward it. Flying over it two people could be seen waving. The cargo bird circled back, came to a hover and lowered its rear ramp to the ground.

The ramp man offered his hand to Paige and helped her up the ramp while Patrick walked up and grabbed ahold of the webbing at the as the craft began to lift back into the air and the ramp began to retract.

"Welcome aboard Sir!" shouted the ramp man. "Identification please!"

"Commander Patrick Lewis, TDF. ID number Bravo Tango Victor 357-2947-634. She's a civvy I encountered who was also in need of rescue."

At the mention of that name a uniformed woman with short chin length red hair and glasses sat up quickly, started to wave until she saw the woman standing beside the commander and then slowly brought her hand back down.

"Roger that Sir! We're pretty full up so hopefully we will be headed back soon!" The ramp man called up the identification over the intercom to the cockpit.

"Acknowledged." Said the pilot. "HQ this is Whiskey One Nine do you copy?"

"We copy Whiskey One Nine." Replied the voice from HQ.

"We are full to the brim and bingo fuel so we are RTB to the TDF academy to drop all these hitchhikers off, unless you have other plans." Replied the pilot.

"No one has any room for them anyway Whiskey One Nine, so The Academy is as good a place as any. Just make sure they all know to check in with Ops when they get there so we know who we've got where."

"Copy that HQ. Also our last pick up was one Commander Patrick Lewis. I seem to recall one of the dispatches saying we needed to report it if anyone picked that guy up." Noted the pilot.

"Roger that One Nine. Well pass that along. There will be fuel and new orders waiting for you when you land. HQ out."

The bulky craft banked to a new heading as it continued to gain altitude and settled in for the ride.

…

After spending a night trying to chipping away at rubble with leftover shovels and picks, Cora and Dawn had come to a somewhat depressing conclusion. Even with the superhuman powers they possessed, having a bum leg and a bum arm pretty much prevented them from being able to plow through a whole building's worth of rubble to get to their buried treasure. A few of their items had been uncovered by the diggers who had come looking for them and were set aside but some of their things were still under the rubble despite their best efforts.

"We could really use an earth type right about now." Said Dawn for the nth time as the early morning sun began to shine down on them. Cora just glared at her as she tried to swing a pick at the pile of rubble without falling over from her injured leg. After a minute Cora stood up and leaned on the pick.

"I'm tired of this shit. Dawn why don't you go fishing." She said as she limped over to the stack of luggage and sat down next to it. Dawn looked at her and dropped her shovel.

"Sure thing. I like that idea a whole lot better than this." And she walked down the alley and into the street, turning down and out of sight.

A few minutes later Dawn jogged around the corner again looking behind her to make sure she wasn't being followed or watched. Over her shoulder she carried an unconscious male form. When she got to Cora she gently laid the body down. Cora gave her an exasperated look.

"You're not really much into seduction are you?" she asked.

"Nooooo. That's your thing Cora. I hit people and make them fall down. Don't worry he's not dead or anything. He will wake up in a few minutes." Dawn replied.

Soon the man started to groan and blink his eyes. Cora leaned over him and grabbed his head staring into his eyes. As she stared his eyes began to widen and he started to struggle. She held him firmly staring deep into him dominating his mind as he grabbed her hands trying to pull free. After a few minutes, the struggling became feeble and stopped and his eyes glazed over. Finally his hands slipped to the ground and he relaxed. Cora sat back against the luggage again.

"There's a good pet." She said as she smiled. "Ok pet we need you to dig for the rest of our things. They should be in that area." She pointed. He got up silently, stripped down and began digging with the shovel. "What a good pet." Cora said in a soothing voice.

"Man this is the way to do it." Dawn said leaning back.

"You said it. You know he's kinda cute. I might keep him. We'll see." Cora said as she looked at the dominated digger thoughtfully.

…

The cargo craft set down on the tarmac and the ramp began to come down. Before it was all the way down people began to walk down it, boots making clonking noises on the metal and look around for something that would tell them where the ops building was. Commander Lewis just started walking in the direction he knew it was and Paige walked beside him silently. Jogging up beside the commander the red haired girl, who only came up to his shoulders, came up and threw him a salute.

"It's good to be back on academy grounds isn't it commander?" she said.

"Lieutenant Allaway, good to see you survived!" he said returning her salute. "And yes it is nice to be back. It's also nice to see the place is pretty much in one piece after the last twenty four hours."

"Who's your friend?" the lieutenant asked leaning around the commander to get a better look at Paige.

"I'm sorry, Paige this is Lt. Mary Allaway TDF, Lt. this is Paige. We found each other in the forest where I crashed and she helped me out with my first aid so I helped her find a lift."

"Nice to meet you Paige." Mary said in an even tone while looking Paige up and down.

"You too Mary." Paige said in the same tone while staring down at Mary.

Patrick grabbed the door to the operations building and held it open for the two women as they entered and he followed behind. Coming up to the desk they presented themselves to the NCO working the counter. Mary stepped forward and spoke up.

"Cmdr. Patrick Lewis and Lt. Mary Allaway TDF reporting in after rescue as ordered." She said. When the NCO raised her eyebrow Mary waved her hand over her shoulder. "Oh and some rescued civilian too."

"She was rescued with me and we will be traveling together until arrangements can be made." Said Patrick.

Mary looked over her shoulder her eyes widening a little bit at the revelation. Patrick's expression did not change a single muscle.

"Very well," said the NCO. "Please provide your identification so I can enter you into the system."

Both Patrick and Mary pulled out their military ID cards and placed them on the counter but Paige looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I'm sorry but I've lost my ID." She said hoping to dodge any further requests for personal information.

The NCO smiled understandingly at Paige. "It's ok. A lot of people have in the last 24 hours. It's been hectic. Just fill out this form and it will be fine." She said handing Paige a pad. A sinking feeling started to settle in Paige's stomach as she took the pad but tried to keep smiling.

"Thank you." She said with some effort.

"All of you can take a seat while I process you. I will call you to get your identification back." Said the NCO noting the rest of the rescued from the cargo craft had finally found their way to her desk. She began to repeat the speech about ID again and the others went to sit in plain black chairs lined up against the window.

They had barely sat down when the NCO called out.

"Cmdr. Lewis sir? You are being requested to an immediate briefing with The Admiralty. The marine here will take you to a closed area where you make the video call." She waved a man over with a bandolier and a rifle, who stood at attention next to the counter waiting for Patrick. As all three began to move toward the marine he held his hand up and the NCO spoke.

"You two will have to wait here until he gets back I'm afraid. This is a classified briefing." She said.

Patrick gave them both an apologetic look, retrieved his ID and followed the marine down the hall.

Mary and Paige sat back down and looked at each other. Paige looked at the form and thanked her lucky stars that she was at least taught read and write. The first few blanks on the form already had her worried. First name, last name, middle initial. _Great, I'm already in trouble,_ she thought. _Race… hmmm does electric type count?_ Place of birth… she sighed and looked up to see Mary watching her not fill out the form. _Oh yeah this is going to be greeeeeeeeeeat._

…

Later that day a very old truck finished driving down a twisting dirt road to find an old abandoned house set way back in the trees. Cora, Dawn and the pet all got out and started to inspect the house.

"Just like that creepy old man said. Looks like we have a nice place to start things up for ourselves." Said Dawn.

"Pet take our things inside and put the vehicle around the back. Then remove the tracks along the road. Are you sure the old man won't tell anyone about us?" Cora asked.

"Don't you worry about that." Dawn grinned wickedly as she walked up onto the porch. "They won't find him for a while."

"Just so long as none of the local authorities feel the need to investigate that's fine." Cora said as she walked into the first room and turned her nose up at the rustic flavor of the décor and the smell. "We are going to have to do something about this place."

"Isn't that what your pet is for?" Asked Dawn.

"I don't want to over work him. He's going to need to last for a while and we are both going to need taming as well. Until we can get everything set up we are both going to have to chip in." she sighed as she said it.

"Alright fine." Huffed Dawn. "I get first dibbs on bedrooms though!" She said as she raced into the hallway.

"No fair I can't run!" called Cora. As her pet came in with the luggage Cora opted to sort through that rather than try out the other rooms. She separated the bags into equipment and personal items as they were brought in. "Pet this pile over here stays, these go down to the basement, including the crates that are still in the truck." She said as she took a few bags of personal items and limped down the hall to see if she could find a room and maybe some water to bath in.

…

The marine led Patrick down so many twists and turns he was fairly sure he was going to need assistance getting back to the lobby. This was a part of the operations building he had never been in before. The marine stopped in front of a heavy door and opened it for him.

"I'll be waiting outside when you are done sir." He said.

"Thank you corporal." The commander said as he stepped inside. It was not a large room but it didn't need to be. As the door clanged shut behind him Patrick swallowed a few times to pop his ears to adjust to what felt like a different pressure from the sound dampening walls in what was essentially a closet. He pulled what looked like sunglasses from the wall and pushed a button, making sure the light turned green before putting them on his face, adjusting the ear buds and standing in the middle of the glowing circle on the floor. A start up screen appeared in front of his eyes and then a conference room with five admirals appeared as if he were standing physically in the room at the front end of the table. These virtual calls could be disconcerting sometimes. He saluted.

"Cmdr. Patrick Lewis reporting as ordered sirs!" He stood at attention and held his salute without moving.

"At ease, commander." Said Admiral Fai Chen Hou, not looking up from the pad he was reading.

Patrick moved his hands behind his back and his feet to shoulder width but still maintained his ridged pose and said nothing, looking straight ahead. The admirals all continued to busy themselves with the material in front of them as if the commander was not there. Patrick endured this show of power and control with a stoicism born of years of dealing with flag officers. Depending on which one speaks first… He thought to himself. After a few more minutes of being 'busy' Admiral Iona Roydon looked up and locked eyes with him. Oh thank goodness. Mentally he sighed, externally he did not twitch a muscle.

"Commander Lewis, yesterday's battle was a great victory for the earth, however we suffered much loss and there are some gaps in our data that we would like to question you about." Not waiting for him to acknowledge she continued. "The Admiralty lost communications with Admiral Zelenko aboard the Warspite at 13:45:32 Zulu. HQ witnessed it being struck on the opposite side from us but could not estimate the damage. Please tell us where you were, where the primary ships officers were and what the condition of the ship was at that time."

"I was in the operations room, Capt. Sonnen was on the bridge, while the admiral was on the secondary bridge with his staff commanding the first battleship squadron. All of the other command officers had recently reported in from their stations just prior to the formation beginning to move on the enemy. The squadron was hanging back and the admiral was engaging in 'winning the little battle' as he liked to call it and just using the large guns of the battleships to cover the smaller ships as they started to whittle down the enemy escorts. This tactic was actually looking like it was starting to work. We really do have the advantage of numbers and speed at that level, it just takes coordination and time to work them down. It was at that point that the enemy decided to stop giving us time and the rest of their fleet surged forward for a general melee to use their superior firepower and armor against us."

Patrick took a moment to gather his thoughts and breathe before continuing.

"I then began concentrating on my duties of directing the gun and missile batteries, availing ourselves of any smaller enemies that did anything stupid and coordinating our fire with the Salamis and the Kure for maximum armor penetration so our escorts could get the best use out of their missiles and torpedoes."

"Text book tactics." Said Admiral George Brannon. Patrick wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult.

"That's when we were hit. Our shields usually aren't worth much but they can at least take the edge off. Our armor on the other hand can at least take a couple of hits before starting to give. I was watching through the external sensors when this came in. They have clearly been watching our tactics and decided to copy some of what we have been doing. We were hit by coordinated fire from multiple behemoths. It was an instant citadel penetration."

At this all of the admirals frowned deeply and looked at each other with worried expressions.

"You're sure of this?" Asked Admiral Roydon.

"The image is very well burned into my memory Admiral. I can still see very clearly three distinct beams coming from three enemy ships hitting us at the same time in the same place." The commander said with grim look.

"Very well, carry on." Said the admiral.

"Of course all hell broke loose. Chief of the Watch Hjort was immediately directing emergency response teams, while I tried to distract the ships that were shooting us with fire of our own. I was then called to the bridge. I left Second Officer Hamlin in charge of operations. When I got there the place was a wreck and I was shown Cpt. Sonnen who had a piece of pipe wedged in his neck. It was at that point that I took command of the ship. It was only seconds after that, that I received a call from the secondary bridge and the admiral informed me that we had lost all communications to the squadron. I informed the admiral of the damage and that I had taken command of the ship. He then said he was transferring his flag to continue the battle. I called down to the hanger and asked that shuttle three be readied for the admiral. I never saw or heard from him again."

"Are you sure about shuttle three Commander?" Asked Admiral Hou.

"I cannot be sure he got on shuttle three Sir, but it was the one I ordered be ready." Patrick answered.

"Well he never made it to any of the other battleships as far as we know. We found the wreckage of shuttle 3 and what we think is Admiral Zelenko's body. It's a bit hard to tell." Continued the admiral. Some of the other admirals gave him a dirty look.

"Very good Commander. We are familiar with the course of the rest of the battle. There is just one further matter. Tell us about your final moments aboard The Warspite." Commanded Admiral Roydon.

Even though Patrick was not physically in the room, he could almost feel the sudden chill that overtook it. He tried not to shiver.

"After realizing what needed to be done I ordered the crew to abandon ship to save as many of them as I could. I remained to steer the ship and do what was required. A few of the bridge crew refused the abandon ship order. We were pounded mercilessly by enemy gun fire as we came in. Many of the crew did not abandon ship but continued to fire the guns all the way in. They…" Patrick choked up for a moment. When he began to speak again his voice was steady "They were a fine crew and I am proud to have served with them."

"So how is it then COMMANDER," Began Admiral Brannon "That you are here with us and they are not!?" Patrick's eyes shot wide at the attack.

"I cannot answer that question Sir. One of the enemy barrages knocked me unconscious. When I came to, I was in an escape pod shooting away from the Warspite as it crashed into the enemy mothership." Patrick said staring at the floor.

The admirals all stared hard at him with unforgiving faces as he stood unmoving remembering the lost.

"And for the record," said Admiral Roydon, "What was your final order as the commanding officer of the Warspite?"

"All ahead full, sir." Replied Patrick.

"And did you receive confirmation from maneuvering?"

"Yes sir I did."

"Very well. You are to be given command of the destroyer Havock. She is currently in the repair yard. Your orders will be forwarded to you at the academy. See the operations desk." Said the admiral.

"A destroyer…" Said Patrick softly.

Admiral Roydon caught the look on his face. "Commander Lewis," her tone sharp but her voice low, "Were you somehow under the impression that uninspired tactics and losing the flagship of the fleet somehow warranted… promotion?" she said as she raised an eyebrow.

Patrick's eyes widened a little and he swallowed hard. It would have hurt less if she had actually slapped him, but he remained silent.

"We are, however, in short supply of battle experienced command level officers. So you will be getting a command, just not the one you were hoping for. So if that is all, dismissed." And all of the admirals promptly went back to pretending the commander was not there.

Patrick took off the glasses and turned them off and he was suddenly back in the small sound proof closet again, his breath shuddering and his body shaking at what just happened. He slammed his fist many times into the wall, barely making a thump.

…

The pace was finally starting to die back a bit and dispatch was allowing the EMTs to start sleeping in shifts, though not allowing them to leave the barn to do so. As a result Jamie found a small room in the far back of the building, turned off the lights and collapsed on the floor, resting her head on her medical bag.

She laid there for a while unable to sleep staring up at the ceiling. Despite her exhaustion she could not seem to turn her brain off. Despite the almost macho and seemingly uncaring demeanor she and the other EMTs put on, they really did care what happened to people, even the stupid ones, otherwise why keep doing what they did? And what they saw and did each day had a very profound effect on them which made sleep very hard to come by some nights.

She rubbed her eyes harshly with her palms and sighed heavily. She cursed fluently in a few languages and dropped her arms to her torso. Her cursing paused as she felt something odd in one of her pockets and fished it out. She held it up over her head and looked at it in the pale blue light cast by the clock on the table in the corner. As she rolled the ball through her fingers she hit the button on its side and a red beam shot out.

Jamie's jaw dropped as, suddenly, straddling her was a voluptuous creature with shimmering hair, gossamer wings, four arms, a bee like abdomen sticking out of her back and not a single stitch of clothing on her anywhere. The creature stretched fluidly making pleasing noises, the blue light reflected off of her pale skin like moonlight. She flapped her wings making a buzzing noise and looked down at Jamie who could do little more than make incoherent sounds and drool a little.

"Do you like what you see?" Asked the creature. Jamie could only give the smallest of wide eyed nods.

"Good. Then you will be my first." The winged woman said as she pushed her hair over an ear and leaned down to give Jamie a long lingering kiss.

She lifted her lips just millimeters and one corner curled upwards in a grin.

"The first of many…"

…

Commander Lewis followed the corporal back to the lobby stony faced.

"I'm telling you I've traveled all around the mountains where we were picked up and your accent doesn't sound AT ALL what they talk like there." Said Mary in an accusatory tone.

"And I'm telling you that it's none of your business where I got my accent from, MARY." Shot back Paige.

They both stopped their bickering when they saw the look on Patrick's face as he walked back in.

Patrick walked up to the desk and the Chief presented him with a pad.

"I have uploaded your orders to this pad Sir. It will accept your biometrics as authentication. I'm sorry to say but the available barracks here at the academy are being used to billet the NCOs and below. We have been asking the officers to find lodging in the town and submit their receipts. I do apologize. This is only temporary as we have to accommodate all of the pod rescues until repairs can be completed in orbit to start moving personal back into space."

"Very well, I have family I can stay with in town. Thank you for your time Chief." He said as he turned away and walked back over to the two women. They both stood up and met him halfway.

"Are we going to see Mama Lewis?" Mary said almost clapping in excitement.

"Before we leave I think Patrick needs to have his injuries checked out." Paige said.

"The commander is tough." Said Mary proudly. "He just needs rest. I've seen him handle worse."

Patrick opened his mouth to speak on his own behalf when Paige reached out and jabbed him in the gut wound that was hidden under his jacket.

"Oh my god!" yelled Mary as she caught Patrick on his way down groaning and doubling over from pain. "Was that really necessary?"

"I've had to deal with stubborn alpha males before Mary. I really do have his best interests in mind and he really isn't ok." Paige said softening her tone and expression.

Mary gave her an appraising look as she struggled to hold up the still groaning commander.

"Yeah ok, help me get him to the med center." She said. With that Paige tucked herself under Patrick's other shoulder and together they hauled him off.

A couple of hours and a few scans later Patrick walked slowly back through the hospital halls taking care to keep out of the way of the frazzled but still tightly focused medical personal. When he reached the outer waiting room both women looked up expectantly. Before they could speak he began his report.

"Yes I have a concussion but there is no permeant damage. No comments from the peanut gallery please." He said seeing a sly grin creeping up on Paige's face. "My other wounds have been stitched, disinfected and bandaged. I have good drugs, more bandages and gauze and my orders have been appended with light duty for the next few weeks. Then they told me they didn't want to see me again unless I was oozing things that should only be seen coming out of deep space probes."

"They got you out of there quicker than I thought they would." Commented Mary.

"Well the doc said they are in a lull after dealing with the battle injuries and most of the rescues. Apparently they are expecting the overflow from the closest cities that took damage from the enemy weapons. He said he expects that to be fairly bad from the reports he's getting." Patrick said.

"Well then we probably ought to find somewhere else to be." Suggested Paige.

"Time to see Mama Lewis!" squealed Mary as she nearly ran out the door. Patrick smiled a little smile and looked at Paige who smiled back as they followed at a slightly slower pace.

…

The three of them got off of the mass transportation bus and Paige took a look around. The pavement below her booted feet was old and cracked everywhere she looked. The convenience store across the street had a mess made of its front door and windows and there were three official looking vehicles with red and blue flashing lights in front of it. She saw that there were half a dozen officers in blue body armor standing around trying to look at ease talking to the people seated clustered on the ground in the open, but they were constantly scanning the area around them as they talked. The officers were not Jennys, she noted, but rather a mix of human men and women all well-armed.

As they began walking they passed people who neither smiled nor acknowledged them other than to give them an appraising look before passing on their way. The stores and bars on the street were worn down and well secured, and there was trash gathering in piles against many of the buildings.

Shortly Paige saw a sign and a scene that she didn't understand. She poked Patrick and spoke up.

"Patrick, how do you pronounce that L word? And what is going on with all of those people?" She said pointing.

"That word is Lutheran," Patrick said pushing Paige's hand down so she would stop pointing "And those people are homeless. That church is giving them free food so they don't starve, because they don't have the money to buy any."

Paige's head tilted to the side as she tried to process all the things she had seen in the last few minutes. This world was making less and less sense by the minute.

They walked down a side street into a neighborhood, where all of the houses were obviously old. Many of them were not well kept, though most were clearly lived in. A few were down right falling down, others were still upright though looked no better than trash heaps if the outside was any indication. Others still were blank slates with burly and usually tattooed men out front who just glared at you as you passed by.

But there were other houses that, despite their age, were still fairly well maintained with green yards and pretty flowers and trees. It was in front of one of these that the trio stopped. Mary, fairly giddy, ran up the walkway to the porch and knocked on the screen door.

"Justa minute now, Momma ain't as young as she used to be ya know!" called a voice from deep within the house. Creaking of the wooden floor commenced and Mary called in through the screen door. "It's us Mama Lewis!"

"Oh is that my Ms. Mary!" Called out the voice as it got closer. Rounding the corner into view in the main hallway was a short round woman, clearly quite a bit spryer than her words would let on based on her speed of movement. "Oh and she brought my baby boy back with her!" The door swung open and Patrick found himself engulfed in a pair of thick arms her face buried in his chest. Patrick quickly wrapped his arms around her and gave her a bear hug.

"Missed you Mama." He said quietly.

"I'm so glad you're safe" She said wiping a tear away from her wrinkled eye as she looked up at him and smiled. "I've heard so many awful rumors bout the battle. You know how people can get. It's a weight off this old woman's heart to see you in one piece."

"Well Paige here helped a lot with that last part." Patrick said indicating to his left.

"Oh and look at this you finally brought a woman home to your Momma!" She said excitedly. Paige blushed fiercely.

"And what am I, chopped liver?!" Asked Mary indigently. Mama Lewis turned and gave Mary a teasing wink.

"Come and give Momma Lewis a big ol hug!" She said and hugged Mary. "How's your daddy? I haven't heard from him in a very long time now."

Mary's face grew dark. "Well Dad was never the same after Mom died you know. He left and took a mining job out on Io. He was there when it was attacked. The report said there were no survivors and I have never been posted to a ship that has been out far enough to look and see for myself."

"Oh I'm so sorry dear." Mama said hugging Mary again. Mary smiled into the hug.

"It's ok Mama. It's been years. I've had time to come to grips with it, and get a little revenge while I was at it." She grinned.

"Well you know you'll always be family to me right Ms. Mary?" Mama said, and Mary just smiled even wider.

Paige looked back and forth between Patrick and Mama Lewis noticing the dramatic difference in the shade of their skin tones. "Patrick, this is your mother?" She inquired.

"I'm adopted Paige. This is the neighborhood I grew up in, along with Mary. Mama here took me in when I was 13 and officially adopted me when I was 15. She has been the only family I ever known and needed." Said Patrick with a tone in his voice that Paige couldn't place.

"He surely was a trouble maker, but we put him through the scrubber and he came out alright." Mama said as she straightened Patrick's collar and looked at him proudly.

"So! Paige was it?" Mama said as she turned on her. She gazed into Paige's eyes and the electric girl felt very vulnerable as Mama seemed to stare through her for a moment. But then Mama smiled warmly. "Well we all can't just stand out here on the porch all day! Come on in!" She started to lead them all to the back of the house toward the kitchen, having taken Paige by the hand.

"Can we get some of Mama's famous biscuits?" Asked Mary.

Mama gave Mary a big grin. "Just took a batch outta the oven."

"YES!" Mary said as she pumped her fists.

…

"I think we should use the PPHU." Cora said sitting at the dining room table.

Dawn, sitting beside her, didn't answer as she watched pet move around the kitchen cooking in nothing more than boxer briefs and an apron, showing off his well-muscled body through the open back of the apron. Cora clicked her fingers in front of Dawn's face.

"Helloooooo. The portable healing unit, it has enough charge for two healing cycles and I think we should use it so we can both be back up to speed quickly." Said Cora again.

Dawn reluctantly turned to look at her. Her face took on a serious expression for a minute as she gathered her thoughts before speaking.

"Look Cora, I'm gonna try and say this right so let me get through it before you get mad. Here's the deal, you and I, we don't know each other. And that PPHU is just as capable of a Level 5 as it is of healing us up. And I don't want to come out of that thing an empty soulless shell with all of her memories erased. Do you get what I'm trying to say Cora?" Dawn asked with a serious tone.

"You don't trust me." Cora said running her hands through her hair and leaning on the table.

"Do I have a reason to? It's not like either of us are saints. And we're pretty much only in this together by chance. Now that's not sayin we don't get along and that we don't work together well, cause I think we seem to. I think we can come to a good working relationship, you and I." Dawn commented.

Cora nodded in agreement and looked thoughtful for a few minutes.

"You know the level 5 requires two keys to operate. How about each of us wears one of the keys? That way I can put you through healing cycles and I can't operate the level 5 because the second key is trapped in the ball with you, and the same is true in reverse when I need healed." Cora offered.

Dawn thought about it for a few minutes. "Ok it's agreed."

Cora motioned to her pet. "Pet, please go get the PPHU and two balls from the crates downstairs."

He did as ordered silently as always, returning quickly and setting the items on the dining room table and returning to his duties in the kitchen. Cora took one key and chain from the PPHU and put it around her neck, pulling her hair through, while Dawn took the other and put it around her neck. They both then looked at the two red and white balls sitting on the table and then looked back at each other hesitating.

"Ok, so who's first?" Cora asked.

…

"Now you three take a seat while I get the biscuits." Smiled Mama as she started scuttling around the kitchen. Paige pulled her backpack off and slid it next to her feet as she sat down. The others slid theirs into a corner of the kitchen so as to be out of the way. Soon there were four glasses of homemade lemonade, small plates, a bottle of local honey, a large tub of butter and butter knives and a huge basket full of fresh and hot, lightly browned, fluffy steaming biscuits. Mary wasted no time making a mess of her plate and stuffing her face. The others were slightly more reserved. Paige ate quietly trying not to be uncomfortable.

"Now Paige dear, in Momma's house there's a rule: that everyone in our family needs to be honest with each other. Now don't you think it's time you spilled the beans?" Mama said painting her half biscuit with butter and honey.

Paige's jaw dropped and Patrick just leaned back in his seat and sighed.

"Mh hrmn mhr!" said Mary excitedly pointing her butter knife at Paige.

"Don't talk with your mouth full dear." Said Mama looking at Mary, who promptly deflated and looked sheepish. "Paige dear, Momma hasn't lived as long as she has in this neighborhood by lookin cute. One look into your eyes was all I needed to see you had the entire world to hide. Momma saw right through you dear." She said with big grin.

"Mama, I think you need to know that I promised Paige I wouldn't take anything from her she didn't freely offer." Said Patrick.

"And that's all fine, well and good my son, but someone has to be lookin out for you and makin sure you're not getting yourself into trouble." Mama said looking at him sternly.

"She CLAIMS to have his best interests in mind." Said Mary as she leveled a look at Paige.

Paige looked to Patrick with an unsure look on her face.

"As pushy as they can be, you CAN trust them." Patrick said reassuringly. He looked back at the other two. "But this is probably going to get a bit weird so you to need to keep your calm ok?"

They both nodded and Patrick looked at Paige, who took a deep breath and took off her hat letting her yellow and black ears flop down onto her shoulders. She then took off her jacket exposing the yellow fur on her arms. Mary's jaw dropped exposing the half chewed biscuit in her mouth. Mama smiled in an odd way.

"Well I have to say that wasn't what I was expecting." Mama said quietly.

"If I'm going to do this I would rather not have to repeat everything." Said Paige pulling out a PPHU and four red and white balls from her backpack. "So I'd kinda like to introduce you to the rest of MY family. It's going to take about 20 minutes before everyone is healed back up though." She placed the four balls in the machine and closed the door. Then she grabbed the cable with one hand and electricity started arcing and the machine came to life. She made a few selections on the screen and a timer came up and started to count down. Patrick was giving Paige a look.

"Introduce us…" He said.

"Patrick, I hope you can follow your own advice about keeping your calm. You see this is where things are going to start getting weird, even for you. There are four more girls, kinda like me, in each one of those balls."

The pregnant pause in the room after that statement hung in the air for a few moments before Mary summed up everyone's feelings about what Paige had just said.

"Bullshit!"

…


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Behold Chapter 3. The plot still crawls at a glacial pace as do the reader comments. W00t! Well I'm enjoying these characters so far. They seem to keep giving me scenes with the way they interact with each other and I like writing them. So on with the story!

 **Chapter 3**

Paige just started to giggle at Mary's declaration. "You'll see." And she started laughing again.

Patrick looked at the timer and then turned to Mama Lewis.

"So where are Louis and Lara? I haven't seen, or for that matter heard them since I got home." He asked looking around.

"Well we lost poor Louis about a year and some ago while you were off savin the world. But doncha be too sad. That puppy Lara kept him young up until his dyin breath." Mama said with a smile. "Poor Lara though. She's been mopin around ever since. She's all kinds of lonely I think. They were fast friends ya know. She's probably out in the back yard sleepin and doesn't even know you're home. I'd bet if you went and got her, that'd perk her right up."

Patrick got up and walked to the back door, opened it and called out. At the far end of the yard under a shady tree a German shepherd lifted her head, eyes wide and ears straight up at the sound of Patrick's voice. And with a burst of speed came running across the yard barking and landing her paws on his shoulders pushing him back into the kitchen licking his face. Patrick scratched her behind her ears and on her sides.

"Ok ok! I'm glad to see you to girl. Down you go." He said as he pulled her paws off his shoulders. She then trotted over to Mary and started licking the crumbs and mess off of her face as Mary giggled at her.

Paige eyed the animal cautiously as it went around the room. When it came to her she remained very still.

"Lara this is Paige. Be nice ok?" Said Mama. Lara looked up at her and tilted her head, almost as if she understood what was being said to her. The dog then proceeded to sniff Paige's hand, and her leg, and her shoes, and her butt, and her backpack, and when she stuck her snout between her legs Paige let out a little squeak. "Ok that's enough Lara." Laughed Mama. Lara started to move her snout along the table sniffing with great interest at the portable healing unit on the table. Paige scooted the PPHU a little closer to her and Lara wander off to investigate the other strange smells in the room.

Mama and Mary began to pass the time making small talk while glancing at both the machine and Paige. Paige sat silently nibbling on a biscuit awkwardly with one hand while still charging the unit with the other. Patrick took the opportunity to find the restroom and relieve himself. While he was gone there was a whirring noise and then the machine went 'DING!' and opened up to reveal the four red and white balls. Paige pulled them out and put them on the table and looked down the hallway as Patrick started to come out of the bathroom.

"Timing is everything." Mary said. "Now we can see furry girl's magic tricks."

"Mary dear," Mama said patting Mary's hand "Let's hear what she has to say ok?"

"Yes Mama." Mary said, frowning.

"Paige…" Said Patrick walking up to the table "I thought you said there were four of these things. I only count three."

Paige stared at the spot on the table where the ball should have been in shock for a moment.

"Wren?" Paige jumped up in alarm starting to frantically look under the table and all over the kitchen for the missing ball. Suddenly there were two sets of barking and growling and yipping noises coming from the backyard. "Wren!" said Paige and she dashed out back with the others hot on her tail.

The sight that greeted them would have almost been humorous if it hadn't been so far outside the realm of experience of anyone watching it. The red and white ball was open on the grass and Lara had one end of a rope toy in her mouth and was shaking her head and pulling on it with all her might, her tail wagging a thousand miles an hour. The other end of the rope toy was gripped firmly in the muzzle of a woman on all fours with a dog like face, pointy doggy ears on the top of her head, dirty blond hair that was flying everywhere, light tan and brown fur covering her unclothed body, which allowed her ample assets to swing free as her tail was also wagging madly.

"What are they doing?" Asked Paige in a mild state of shock.

"Well I can't be certain, but I think they're playing…" Said Mary with her head tilted to one side.

They all stood there watching the spectacle for a few minutes before Paige called out.

"Wren…Wren!...WREN!"

Wren suddenly let go of the rope and looked up at Paige in surprise. Lara fell over backwards with a yip.

"Oh hiya Paige." She said with a big grin and rolled over on her back in the grass. Lara ran up to her and began licking her all over her face and Wren started to giggle and laugh kicking her feet up in the air. Patrick realized that her muzzle was not nearly as pronounced as he had first thought it was now that he had a better look at it. There were other things that were pronounced, however. He had a harder time not looking at those. Mary put a hand in front of his eyes.

"Hey!" Patrick said moving her hand away. She glared at him in return.

"Wren, I can see you're having fun but we've got serious stuff to get done. I need you to come inside please." Paige said to the cavorting woman.

"Awwwwwww." Wren pouted but freed herself from Lara none the less, brushed all of the grass out of her fur and followed everyone inside.

Paige immediately grabbed the balls and began pushing red buttons. Red beams came out of them and more women began appearing in the rapidly crowding kitchen. The first to fully form filled the room with an amazing smell. Her face was pale and her light blue hair fell down to the mostly opened bulb on her back. All over the rest of her body her skin was covered in soft white fuzz that gave her an almost velvety appearance. Her bulb was not filled with a single blooming flower like most of her kind, but rather a large collection of stems filled with partially bloomed purple flowers. Her vines were waving slowly in the air around her as she panned her soft green eyes around to see where she was.

Mama breathed deep the new smell and looked the new girl over with awe and amazement.

"Could that be… lavandula angustifolia? Walkin on two feet? Oh my… a gardener's dream…" She said as she tentatively put out a hand to touch the girls shoulder. The plant girl looked at Paige who nodded.

"It's ok for now Iris."

Mary had to move out of the way as the girl by the door started to form. She stood as tall as Patrick did but at first Mary couldn't see her face as it was hidden behind a Corinthian bronze helmet. She was wearing flexible hardened cloth body armor, leather skirt, bronze greaves and sleeves, a short sword on one hip, a small curved knife on the other and a large round shield with a capital lamda in red on a white background. She removed the helmet slowly and Mary saw a tattoo around her left eye and down her cheek. Her short cut deep brown hair was all combed over the left side of her head, with the right side of her hair cut very short. Her brown eyes scanned the room and fell on Patrick. The air around her immediately began to take on a shiny, sparkly appearance, though her face did not change expression.

Paige glared at her.

"Really Arianna?"

"What?" Said the hoplite to the accusation.

"You haven't been out of your ball ten seconds and you're already getting sparkly." Paige said testily.

"I am NOT sparkly." She protested

"You are too! Can you please keep it in your loincloth for a few minutes while we take care of the situation we are in?" Paige grumped. Arianna just rolled her eyes and leaned up against the wall looking over the rest of the room.

"It's not a loincloth." Arianna muttered under her breath.

As the final girl began to form Patrick's eyes were drawn to a single feature first that kept him from noticing much else for a bit. The bosom on this girl was only marginally contained by a loosely tied corset that went over a floor length dress that he could have sworn was right out of the middle ages. After finally tearing himself away from the cleavage that could have swallowed whole fleets he noticed that a short tail with a fluffy end was slowly swishing back and forth behind her and spotted white and brown ears flopped down the side of her head and the smallest little horns poked through her brown hair that flowed down her back. She blushed fiercely as she saw Patrick's eyes on her and looked down at the ground shyly.

"Ok now that everyone is here, I guess we can get started." Said Paige.

Mama looked around at all the people. "We're gonna need to get some extra chairs in here."

"And some extra clothes." Said Mary her face going almost as red as her hair.

…

Dawn stretched enjoying the feeling of being healthy and clean. Cora had put her through a healing cycle and had thrown a cleaning cycle in for good measure, _which was kinda nice of her,_ thought Dawn. Dawn had returned the favor and Cora was still in the machine. Meanwhile Dawn was wandering around the house finishing the task she had started before her cycles, taking inventory of everything they owned. She tapped her chin with a pen as she looked over her list.

 _These sure are fragile things,_ as she heard a slight crack from her third pen of the day. Her amazing strength was making this into an issue. _More… pens…_ she added to the list of things that they needed but didn't have. She looked down the list of things they owned and noted that while they had a decent amount of water, it was the wrong kind. _Good for whenever we want to expand our power but no good for drinkin_ , Dawn mused remembering the glowing water in the crates.

As she walked into the kitchen Pet tapped her on the shoulder. As she looked up he turned the squeaky cold water knob next to the sink and waved his hand through the non-existent water fall, then tapped the 'water' on Dawn's 'don't have but need' list.

"Wait we can get running water in this place?" Dawn asked. Pet just nodded. He tapped 'electricity' next. "And power too?" she raised her eyebrows. He nodded again. "How?" He tapped 'credits' on her list. "I don't suppose you happen to have any?" He just shook his head. "Hmmm, well there are ways around that problem I guess."

She looked thoughtful for a while.

"Hey why don't you talk?" She said giving him a funny look. He just shrugged a 'whatever' at her. Dawn just shook her head.

"Well we're going to have to clear up this shopping list pretty darn quick after Cora gets out." She said setting her lists down on the table.

"Buuuuut she doesn't get done for a while yet…" She leered at Pet and pressing herself up against him sliding her hands down his back and into his briefs, giving him a firm squeeze. "So why don't we have a bit of fun before she's all finished…"

…

Jamie was a train wreck of emotions as she lay in the four arms of her lover. They were both wrapped in a sheet on a bed in a crumbling, broken building far from where they had met a few hours ago. Jamie's long black hair had long ago been taken out of the bun that she kept it in while at work and was spilling all over, contrasting sharply with the sheet.

She was almost sure they had already fired her, and she was already short on rent that month. She really needed that job. The thought scared her, but at the same time being in the arms of this astonishing creature made her feel things she had never even dreamed of before. And to top it all off she had this buzzing headache since the end of her shift that she just couldn't shake. She buried her head in the other woman's ample chest in the hopes of distracting herself from the headache.

"What is the matter, my love?" Asked the gossamer winged woman.

"It's nothin." Mumbled Jamie.

"You should not lie, you know. I can feel your distress." She said as she stroked Jamie's hair gently.

"Well I'm pretty damn sure I just lost my fuckin job and all, and I'm not gonna be able to have food to eat or nothin and I'm just worried is all." Said Jamie.

"Have no fear. I will take care of you from now on. These things will be handled."

Jamie propped herself up to look at her when she said this.

"How in the nine hells are you going to take care of me!? You don't even have clothes much less money?!" Jamie almost shouted.

One of the four hands reached out and brushed Jamie's cheek.

"Don't worry lover, you will get everything you need from now on. Now… relax."

Jamie wince, this headache really was bad. Too bad to be fighting like this. She set her head back down on her favorite pillows.

"Yeah… ok." She said. She could feel her hair being stroked again and her muscles began to release and relax almost of their own accord. Her mind still raced but after a few minutes that too began to slow down. She sighed deeply and smiled.

Her lover whispered to her, "Can you say it? You know how much I love to hear it…"

As Jamie closed her eyes and began to drift back to sleep, she quietly mumbled almost to herself, "Yes… My Queen."

…

The entire group adjourned to the backyard rather than try to stay in the crowded kitchen. Lara and Wren were bouncing around the yard together having way more fun than should be allowed. Mama had the garden hose out with its nozzle for Iris, who was on cloud nine as she was laid out on the grass on her stomach both soaking up the sun and being misted at the same time. Arianna had summoned her spear and was practicing shield pushes and spear thrusts while casting occasional glances at Patrick. The rest were all seated in whatever chairs could be found or brought out and were enjoying the fairly pleasant weather of the day. The food had also made its way out and was sitting on a small table for all to have.

Arianna stopped what she was doing for a moment and looked at Paige.

"Paige I hope you're not hurt that the rest of us aren't really too upset about The Old Man. None of us really bonded to him like you did." She said.

Paige's face darkened a bit.

"No, I'm not upset. I understand. That man…" She just shook her head and sighed. Paige had brought everyone up to speed on what had happened that had brought them all here and how she had found Patrick.

Mary looked at Paige for a while, her face clearly reflecting the changing emotions and thoughts on the inside of her head. It was obvious her opinion of Paige was not holding as firmly antagonistic as it was before.

"So these people you were chasing here to try and stop, these criminals, you have no idea where they went?" Mary said.

"None. We couldn't tell where they ended up and they destroyed the computer that sent them here. We were lucky to get a second portal open. I don't know if they will ever get another open to get us back. That lab was such a disaster, who knows if any of the research was left." Paige admitted. The other girls paused what they were doing and looked at her when she said that.

"And you brought us here anyway?!" Arianna demanded

"I… was in a ball when we got here just like everyone else." Paige shot back. "The Old Man balled me when I argued with him and told us NOT to come here because he was so injured and we wouldn't be able to get back. Letting me out was one of the last things he did."

"Oh…" Arianna looked at the ground. "Look Paige, I didn't mean…"

Paige cut her off, "I know Ari, I know. But I'm doing the best I can as your… well former alpha, to look out for everyone."

"You're still my alpha, Paige, tamer or not." Arianna said standing up straight and looking Paige in the eye. The other girls nodded their head up and down at her as well. Paige smiled halfheartedly.

"Thanks, I think." She said. "I think you're all crazy though." Paige stuck her tongue out at them playfully.

"Well there is not much we can do about the ones you came here for, right now." Said Patrick.

"Can't we report them to someone?" Mary asked.

"To whom would we report, what exactly?" Asked Patrick. "Excuse me police forces of the world. Please be on the lookout for women with super powers that are going to do bad things, at… sometime, that are… somewhere, aaaaaand no we don't know what they look like." He gave Mary a sarcastic look. She just threw up her hands nearly upsetting her plate of biscuits. The girl in the corset quietly giggled into her hand.

"I like him." Said Arianna. Paige just shook her head.

"So what are you gonna do then?" Asked Mama giving him a significant look.

Patrick looked thoughtful for a minute. "First thing first, I think I need more information. What are you girls exactly?" He said.

"I'm Wren the Growlie and I'm a fire type!" said Wren jumping up and spouting a long arcing flamethrower high into the air.

Before the wide eyed humans could respond Arianna snapped to attention her shield held in front and her spear held close.

"I'm Arianna the Shield Maiden, and I'm a psychic type." With a shimmer she became hard to make out and a dense force field surrounded her.

Iris rolled over to get her front side wet. "I'm Iris the Ivywhore and I'm a plant type."

"I kinda figured that one out dear." Mama said with a smile waving the hose around.

"I'm Paige the Peekabu and I'm an electric type." Paige said as she unleashed a lightning bolt into the sky.

"I'm Kaja the Milktit and I'm just a normal type." The long haired girl said quietly with a tiny wave.

The humans just blinked owlishly for a minute.

"Ho….l….y shit." Said Mary.

"Soooo is there anything else I should know about you girls?" Asked Patrick still blinking.

"You should probably just read the entries in this." Said Paige digging through her back pack and pulling out a small red pad like device and handing it to Patrick. Mary scooted closer and Mama handed the hose off to Kaja and came to look over Patrick's shoulder as he figured out how to power it on and began to learn the interface. A few quick questions about spelling and helpful hints about finding entries and the three were deep in reading for a while.

"So why do all of these entries keep talking about these different kinds of…" Mary kept pushing her hands together in different ways and blushing fiercely. "You know…!"

"The word you're lookin for is intercourse dear." Said Mama.

"Yeah that!" Said Mary.

All of the girls started giggling and laughing. Paige swiped to a particular entry.

"You should probably read the 'Tamer' entry, and possibly the 'Pokegirl' entry as well." She said.

They read some more and even Mama's eyes got wide as they took in the information. Patrick was the first to speak, with no small amount of concern in his voice.

"So you actually go insane if you don't regularly get, intercourse, as Mama put it? And you are genetically bound to follow a 'Tamer's' orders? That's actually pretty disturbing." He said

"Well it's not nearly as cut and dry as that article makes it sound." Said Arianna.

Surprisingly it was Kaja who spoke up.

"While we feel a natural urge to do as our Tamer tells us, we can decide to not. Whether out of rebellion or out of the best interests of our tamer. We have a will of our own and we are not robots unless we choose to be. Of course the laws of our world don't show that. We have no rights where we came from. We can't own anything and we aren't even human." She said almost in a whisper, frowning at her feet.

"Oh you poor things!" Said Mary running up and hugging the milktit fiercely causing the hose to spray everywhere, hitting Wren and Lara who yelped in dismay.

"And we don't really go insane as much as we lose a sense of self and our higher mental functions. It's called 'going feral'" Stated Paige. "It is something that we try to avoid at all costs but it's at least something that is, fortunately, reversible."

Patrick went back to his thoughtful face.

"Well Mama to answer your question, what am I going to do; I'm going to do my duty, report to my new commanding officer tomorrow and receive his instructions for my ship and get back to fighting the war. I know the implied question was what am I going to do with the girls, but if they really do have wills of their own and really are human then I don't have the right to decide what happens to them now do I? What they do from here on out is their choice." He said.

In the ensuing silence the girls glanced at each other uncertainly, not sure what to say or do next. Mary, still firmly gripping Kaja, looked at the other girls.

"Patrick," Paige said as she let out a sigh "How can we be free to choose, if we don't know what the choices are?"

…

As a handful of workmen walked around the house fixing things Dawn had a puzzled look on her face.

"So you need to go over this for me one more time. These guys aren't dominated, but they are?" She asked.

Cora sighed.

"No Dawn. Entering someone else's mind and planting suggestions and orders is difficult. The more they already want to do what you are trying to get them to do, the easier it is to plant the order in their head and make sure that it happens a certain way or at a certain time. To totally dominate and take over someone's mind is a very energy consuming thing, but if they _want_ to be dominated it gets easier. Which is kind of why I'm beginning to think Pet is starting to like it here with us. Each time I have to go re-dominate him, it has been getting easier. For these workers, I have just given them… incentives… to come do all of this work, and then planted the orders, rather than do full dominations. When they leave I will plant orders to forget they ever saw us or were ever here and we will remain off the map." Cora explained.

"By, incentives, do you mean you…" Dawn cringed as she made a vulgar hand gesture.

"Yes that is exactly what I mean." Cora sighed.

"Ew. Just ew." Dawn said. "These are some seriously disgusting examples of human males."

"Yes but we are getting running water from a well, power from local wind and solar energy, both of which will make us self-sustaining, getting the power adapted for use with our equipment in the basement and possibly access to a world wide data network. That is worth the need for a very thorough cleaning cycle afterwards." Cora said wrinkling her nose.

"Wait what do you mean possibly access to a world wide data network?" Dawn asked.

"Well… about that. You see the boy who is doing that job for us didn't seem very interested in anything I had to offer him. It seems you're more his type, so I promised him a thrilling time with you instead." Cora looked sheepish.

"What!?" said Dawn looking at the nerdy college student who was playing with computers who kept looking at her, pushing up his glasses and trying to control his breathing. Dawn glared at Cora.

"Look he's not even going to remember you when he leaves here. Besides this is for access to a world wide data network here. That will be invaluable to us I'm sure." Cora said reassuringly.

"Just because he won't remember doesn't mean I won't. And besides look at him, he's a twig! I'll accidentally break him if I look at him wrong!" Dawn protested.

"You'll have to use the restraints on yourself. I will have Pet bring them up for you. We both have to chip in Dawn." Cora gave her a stern look.

"Yeah… ok. Send the twig to my room when he's done and I'll give him the ride of his life. It'd better be worth it though Cora." She sighed.

"It will be Dawn."

…

In the evening Patrick had just gotten back to his small room after his first 'Hollywood shower' in longer than he could even remember. He had tried to keep it short remembering that there were a lot of people in the house, but just letting the water run all over his body was such a huge luxury that he might have gone a little long. He was quite sure Mary was doing the same thing right now. Patrick paused as he thought about Mary in the shower. He shook his head to clear the thought and hung up his towel, flopping down on the twin bed in nothing but his boxers.

He began to reapply the medicine and bandages to his wounds as he considered the rest of the conversation of the afternoon. Nothing had really been decided, though various options had been discussed. Everything from the girls staying with Mama and trying to find jobs to enlisting in the TDF and going to war to finding a place out in the middle no-where and trying to live where no one would ever bother them. All of the possibilities had their good points and their bad, and each of the girls seemed to favor one over the other. Where the natives of this world were going was never in doubt. Patrick and Mary were going back to the war in space and Mama wasn't leaving her home here.

As Patrick considered all of this, out in the dark hallway two different hands both touched his door knob at the same and silently jerked back as they touched each other. Paige and Arianna looked each other in the eye and challenged each other without a word. Without breaking eye contact they both brought their fists up and swung them down with speed… once… twice… three times… and Arianna tapped her fist to Paige's two outstretched fingers. Once more the fists went up and came down and Paige covered Arianna's fist with her flat hand. One final time they brought their fists down and Paige held out two fingers while Arianna held out a flat hand. Paige silently pumped her fist in victory while Arianna looked disgusted. Paige quietly turned the knob and slipped inside while Arianna took a seat with her back to the door.

Patrick looked up to see Paige looking at him from the door dressed in a silky pale white negligée that barely fell below the top of her hips, was very low cut and was held up with spaghetti straps. He noted how well the pale white went with the light yellow of her fur, a great deal of which he could see all over her arms and legs and tail which was tucked in between her knees. Patrick was frozen in awe of the image that was in front of him. Paige slowly padded toward him, moving her body so as to almost but not quite expose all of the things she knew he wanted to see before sitting next to him and taking over the tending of his wounds without saying a word.

"This is starting to become a pattern." Patrick said watching her with rapt attention.

"I'm ok with doing this for you." She said demurely, concentrating on her task, taking extra care with the bandages and allowing her hands to linger on his skin as she worked.

Patrick frowned a little bit.

"Paige, why are you here right now?"

"Didn't you read my entry? I just don't want to go feral. Don't go making this complicated." She said giving him a look like he was being immature.

"What complicates this is according to the reading, and I've been doing a lot, is that if we do this I become your 'tamer' or 'master' or some crap like that. Is that what you really want? Didn't you just lose your last one? Have you even mourned for him yet?" Patrick asked.

Suddenly an electric current raced up his arm and into his chest, the frequency modulated so that even if he wanted to pull away the electricity stuck him in place, its vibration thrumming and humming in the core of his body. The anger and pain in Paige's eyes was intense.

"What do you know of my loss?" She almost screamed as she turned on him. What her eyes met there stopped her cold. She encountered the almost empty eyes of a man who had suffered years of war. Having watched friend and stranger, subordinate and superior, officer and enlisted, civilian and soldier all be ripped away from him in the whole range of maiming and death from instantly to ever so slowly, from wholly to in pieces, all of which hand left their mark over time on the eyes of this man. Paige stopped the flow of energy as she suddenly realized that as brutal as the world she came from was, the one she was in had dark evils to be afraid of as well, only she understood almost nothing about this one.

A rising panic almost threatened to overwhelm her as she approached what she saw in his eyes, what she did not know about this world, about having lost The Old Man, about having the responsibility for the girls and having no idea what to do about any of it. Tears started to well up, and suddenly the damn broke. Patrick was still trying to recover motor control but he put his shaky arms around her and pulled her into his chest. He was still clumsy from the shock and fell backward onto the bed with Paige on top of him. He pulled her close and she sobbed into his neck pounding his chest with her fist. Patrick just stroked her back making soothing noises and being her punching bag.

Out in the hallway Arianna put her head back against the door, a single tear tracing its way down the tattoo on her face.

…

She sat on the concrete stairs in front of the brick apartment building that she used to live in. This part of the city had, more or less, managed to escape to much damage. However the building behind her and the ones on either side of it were a mess. Most of the other multi-storied tightly packed residential buildings were intact and still being lived in, though most people were in for the evening and the lights could be seen in many windows. There were a few people still on the sidewalks and those that passed by the huddled girl just sneered at her misfortune.

She wore the uniform of the Civil Defense Arm, which was in fact a civilian agency not a military one. It claimed in all of its various advertisements, recruitments, and media hooks that its goal was 'to help the people of earth give their soldiers the best resources, comfort and support possible to give our homes and families a bright future'. What this resulted in practically varied from location to location.

Being in the CDA had, in fact, saved her life as she had been away from home when it had been hit due to her duties in the CDA. This was of little comfort to her at the moment, however. She ignored the sneering faces and snide remarks of the people who walked by her. She just cried into her knees and shook. She hadn't eaten in more than a day already and still felt no impulse to change that trend.

The wind blew a fine dust from the rubble into her rust colored curly hair and still she did not move. The sun slowly set over the scene and her tears ran dry as they had many times before already. However, this time was different. Something inside her finally snapped inside her and she shot up to her feet and screamed a scream of rage at the sky. She screamed and screamed. She threw her body about. She kicked at the rubble. She started to throw rocks about in her rage. Right until one hit a passing truck.

The truck screeched to a halt. It reversed until it was closer to her and two women go out. She knew she should be afraid but her rage was so strong that all she could think was even if she got into a fight here she would get to hurt someone on her way out.

As the two women approached her they looked her up and down.

"So what's the deal with throwin rocks at our truck?" Asked the pink haired one.

"Maybe I just didn't like how it looked?" rejoined the uniformed girl. "It offended me."

The big boobed one just started laughing.

"Well someone is just a little ball of hate isn't she? What's your name little ball of hate?"

The girl eyed the two for a minute carefully but finally decided they were not going to give her the fight she wanted.

"My name is Heather."

"Well Heather, I'm Cora and this is Dawn. Tell me Heather, what is it that you hate so much? The rage in you is… well it is worth noting." Cora said.

"I hate this war, I hate these people, but mostly I hate the military. We gave them everything, our time, our money, our energy, every scrap of metal we could find, even our food. We did it thinking they would protect us. And when my home was hit, MY HOME! And I tried to get someone here to help my mother, my father and my little brother no one would come. NO ONE WOULD COME! And when I asked why what did they tell me!? They couldn't spare anyone because they were all trying to save the soldiers first! THE SOLDIERS! How much do we have to give!? Meanwhile not only are the cities burning but things are getting so hard to get, the black market is taking over, the gangs and thugs are on the rise and still the military demands more. You want to know what I hate?! THAT'S what I HATE!"

As her tirade lengthened the mask of rage on her face grew deeper and deeper and her are motions became more and more violent.

"You want to get even? You want to fix all of this?" Ask Cora.

It was Heather's turn to sneer. It turned out she was very good at it.

"I have no interest in joining your pitiful rebellion or whatever pathetic gang you have going. I doubt you can acquire any of the decent weapons the military uses anyway. If you really want to overthrow things that's what you have to do. If the military actually CARED about cleaning things up they could." Heather spat.

Dawn and Cora just started laughing again. Cora gave Dawn a nod. With blinding speed Dawn crashed into the remains of one of the buildings and back out again. She dusted herself off and the whole building crashed to the ground covering all three of them in dust. When the dust cleared and Heather stopped coughing Cora summoned a spear of ice from her hand and gouged the sidewalk clean of concrete for over twenty feet. Heather, covered in dust and bits of concrete was in awe.

"We are not talking about toys Heather we are talking about real power. We can give you this power too." Cora said with a smile.

Heather's eyes narrowed as she looked at them both.

"What's the catch?" She asked suspiciously. They both grinned at her.

"You will be ours to command, body and mind. Oh you will still have a will to be sure, but you will call us mistress but you will have power beyond your dreams." Said Cora.

"And you will use that power to destroy the people I hate?" Asked Heather.

"Don't worry. Come with us Heather and you will get your War of Revenge." Said Cora with a wicked smile.

…


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** And you just thought you had seen the last of me MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH *coughhackwheeze* Behold! Another chapter in the very slowly growing saga of our heroic... hero... types... You know what here's the story.

 **Chapter 4**

"Look he was a disgusting old man and I didn't care one bit for him either ok? But a murder is a murder." The deputy sheriff said with a bit of exasperation. His slight shoulders and small build belied the ribbons on his chest. All citizens were allowed to display the ribbons they acquired during their term of service and Deputy Taylor Simon's ribbon rack showed his term had been an eventful one.

"You really think this was a murder?" The sheriff sighed. His ribbon rack was almost identical to the deputy's rack. He was a well-built man on a solid six foot frame.

"He's embedded, upside down, in a concrete wall! I'm pretty sure it wasn't a suicide." Said Deputy Simon as calmly as he could muster. He began to rub the temples under his bright blond hair pushing his large brimmed sheriff's hat higher on his head.

"Fine, if you're not going to let me just quietly bury the piece of shit, then we will investigate his murder. Don't pop a blood vessel over it Taylor." Said Sheriff Malcom Bassi.

"Malcom are you telling me that this doesn't strike you as even a little bit suspicious? Like someone might have gotten their hands on some weapons they weren't supposed to?"

The sheriff frowned at that.

"Look Taylor, a lot of crap has been coming out of the city on its way to god only knows where. I'm content to let it pass on through. Especially since it's going to get worse since the city took a pasting from the attack. I just don't want to borrow trouble if it already found its way out of town."

"You're seriously going to let military grade weapons in the hands of murderers just walk out of town?" scowled Deputy Simon.

"You know I'm not Taylor so stop looking at me like that. But you and me, we didn't survive our terms by walking into fire fights we knew we couldn't win. It's just you and me out here and we don't have our gorilla suits anymore. So here's what we are going to do. We'll investigate this murder like you want, BUT, we will take it slow. I will report up the chain that we think we've got possible stolen military tech. That will get them to send out some folks with some bigger guns then what we've got and THEN we can see about tracking down who did this IF they are still here. But I didn't save your ass for as long as I did to lose it in some back water town because you got a wild hair. Now is that good enough for you?"

Taylor looked at the ground a blushed a little bit mumbling as he did so.

"Say what deputy?" Malcom asked.

"I said that's an acceptable plan. Now let's start gathering up the evidence." Taylor said turning away quickly and sliding his hand into blue plastic gloves.

…

The door with the temporary sign '3rd Reconnaissance Squadron' on the front slowly swung open and Patrick slipped in. Inside was a bustling room full of screens, maps of the star system, area around earth and data of various kinds as well as squadron staffers walking back and forth and discussing in low tones all manner of things. They all looked up briefly as he entered and went right back to their work. Patrick went through the room to the back where a yeoman was working at a small desk. He looked up as the commander approached.

"Good morning Sir. The captain is on a call. He will be ready for you in just a moment."

Patrick just nodded and turned to look at the fairly large system wide map in the center of the room. The enemy forces in the system were marked with general strength estimates and vector indications, timestamps of the last intelligence updates on them and dashed lines of their projected paths. There were no Terran forces outside of the moon's orbit, though Patrick doubted if they would be marked on this map if there were. There were still far more enemies in system the Patrick liked, though far less than there were since the last battle, both sides were fairly depleted right now.

"The captain will see you now Sir." The yeoman said.

Patrick turned and walked through the door that the yeoman held opened for him and came to attention in front of the large wooden desk and saluted. The yeoman retreated from the room closing the door behind him.

"Commander Patrick Lewis reporting as ordered Sir!" He said.

Captain Pablo Alvarez returned the salute and motioned to the chair in front of the desk. Both sat down and the captain leaned back in his chair and gave Patrick an appraising look.

"So… Commander Patrick Lewis, decorated combat veteran, battleship officer, operations background, academy graduate, and rising star until…" Captain Alvarez kept his gaze on Patrick who maintained a stony silence. He leaned forward across the desk to give the commander a hard look.

"I'm dying to know, Lewis, how did you get off that ship? Did you run, leaving your ship and crew to die? Are you a coward commander?"

Patrick's face turned into a mask of rage. He gripped the arms of the chair he was in so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He struggled to control his breathing. He closed his eyes and by sheer force of will began to bring his body back under control. When he opened his eyes again he saw the captain leaned back in his chair again analyzing his responses. The anger was not gone but his control was sufficient to begin answering the questions.

"I am no coward Sir. As I told the admirals, I was knocked unconscious by enemy fire and when I woke up I was launching out of the ship in an escape pod. I don't know how I got there or who put me in it Sir." Patrick said tersely.

"How convenient, and anyone who can corroborate your story is dead. Well time will tell if you are telling the truth or not commander. I just hope that too many soldiers don't have to pay the price for it, whether it's showing your true colors as a coward, or you trying to prove that you aren't."

Patrick bit his tongue to keep from saying anything further.

"That being said commander, everyone on your crew, from your XO to the cook's assistant will be either thinking to themselves or whispering behind your back everything I just said and probably more. You had better be prepared for it."

Patrick just nodded still working on his calm.

"Speaking of your ship and crew, let's talk about that. The Havock lost most of its crew in the last battle to a boarding action. The ship is mostly intact but it will take a few weeks to get it back in fighting trim. What crew remained have been broken up and reassigned. It would be a crime to keep them aboard that ship after what happened there. As a result we are reconstituting the crew from survivors of other ships. If there are specific people you desire for your crew put the names into the yeoman outside. I don't even care to see the list, he will take care of it. He knows how to sign my name." The captain leaned forward and grinned. "I call him yeoman Radar."

Patrick looked confused. "I don't get it Sir."

"Nevermind. Anyway, any crew you don't hand select and submit within the next 24 hours will be picked for you. After that they should begin arriving at the ship within the next week. Your quarters and the quarters of your senior staff should be ready tomorrow. Your orders are to oversee the refitting and resupply of your ship in preparation of a squadron mission date thirteen days from now."

"Mission?" The thought of a mission made Patrick lean forward and brought a spark to his eye.

"Yes a mission. Full briefing will be later but the short story is this. You are aware of the Low Observable Passive Scanning (LOPS) satellites we have scattered about the system yes? Well the few that we have remaining to us are invaluable strategic assets at this point. They are also in need of repair and resupply, like everything else in the fleet. Our mission will be to fix that problem, without giving away the satellites positions to the enemy. If we fail to resupply the satellites OR we give their positions away and the enemy destroys them then we will be fighting the rest of this war virtually blind." Said the captain with a deep frown.

"Which practically means defeat." Patrick followed on.

"Almost inevitably." Sighed Captain Alvarez. "For now, get the list of available personal from Radar, and prepare a list of people you want for your crew and return it to him. Then report to your ship and oversee its readiness. You will be informed of any further briefings or orders I have for you." He said as he stood up. Patrick also stood up and saluted.

"Thank you Sir. I will see you in space."

…

Jeremy had been watching her when it happened. He had been watching over Heather most of her life really. They had even been good friends when they were small, but as they grew older she had grown into a bold and outgoing person, while Jeremy had remained the shy and timid small boy he had always been. It had only gotten worse when she joined the CDA in high school. He still watched over her though. There had been times when he had quietly, in the background, intervened on her behalf when she was in trouble. He was sure she didn't know it was him, but that was ok.

When the city was hit and she had lost her family he had tried to go comfort her, he really had. He had even managed to get out the sidewalk before the glares of the people and sounds of her sobs had made him crack.

But then Heather snapped and those people came and they had… had done those things. It was unbelievable what they had done. One thing was clear to Jeremy though, they were not good people, and Heather had gone with them. That was just too much. He had to do something and that meant going… out. He slowly packed a backpack with food and water and other supplies. As he did so his hands visibly trembled. For a moment he clasped his hands together to try and get them to stop shaking.

When he was done packing he put the backpack on, put a baseball cap on his head and stood by his front door. He stood on one foot and then the other. He closed his eyes and whispered to himself before finally yanking the door open, slamming it shut behind him and running in the direction he saw the old truck leave. He pounded his feet on the pavement as fast as they would go, not letting himself stop knowing the instant he did he would lose his nerve.

…

Mary walked into the Mama's backyard after a day at the base of her own to a scene very similar to one she had seen before. The dog types were playing with each other in the grass, Mama was misting Iris down while sitting at the table talking with Kaja, Arianna, Patrick, who was looking sharp in his dress whites… very sharp indeed… and Paige had her hand on his arm while she was talking to him, which was just unacceptable. They were all eating what looked like a wonderful salad with a creamy sauce on it. She wanted some of that, a lot.

She was just sitting down at the table with Patrick herself when Kaja exclaimed "Mary! Don't sit in that chair!"

Mary jumped up like something had bitten her, wide eyed and looking around her.

"What?! Why!? What's wrong?" She asked.

"That chair is dirty. You look so nice in your pretty white uniform, I don't want you to mess it all up." She said jiggling her way over with a few clean towels Mama handed her. She laid the towels over the chair and smiled sweetly. "There you go, now you can sit down and keep yourself pretty and clean."

"Um… thank you. This is my first time wearing my whites in a long time so I kinda forget about stuff like that." Mary said trying hard not to eyeball Kaja's chest. Kaja just winked and went back to talking to Mama. Mary sat down and leaned close to Patrick and Paige.

"Is it just me or are her jugs a whole lot bigger than they were yesterday. I mean I didn't even think that was possible!" she whispered as she started scooping salad onto a plate.

"Oh they are. She is in need of milking. If we don't get that done soon they will probably start to hurt pretty bad. She can produce almost 45 gallons of milk a day you know." Said Paige matter-of-factly.

"She needs… milking…" Said Mary with a look that showed a mixture of uncomfortable and uncertain pouring some dressing onto her salad.

"45… gallons…" Patrick said just trying to do a volume calculation in his head.

"Oh yes. And she can add certain properties too it as well, like healing or sleeping and things. Kaja can tell you more about it of course, I'm not really the expert." Paige said.

"That's a lot of protein that you could add to a diet." Patrick said in a thoughtful tone.

"Oh here he goes. I know that look." Said Mary.

"What?" Asked Paige.

"Oh he's thinking about applications and uses. If we let him go on he would stay like this for hours." Mary smirked.

"Fine, we have business to discuss anyway." Patrick said. "So have you girls come to any decisions about what you are going to do?"

They all kind of looked at him for a few seconds.

"Don't keep looking at me like I'm going to tell you what to do, because I'm not. You all claimed to have wills of your own. You have to decide what you are going to do with yourselves." He said munching on his salad.

"Well we did kinda think of some things but we weren't really sure if they were the best ideas or not…" Iris said frowning.

"That's the dilemma of being free." Mary said dumping way to many crotons on her salad. "You have the power to choose your own fate, but you also have the power to fuck it all up."

"Well…" Iris said "Mama has been so nice to me and she has this really neat garden that I have been helping with so if she is ok with it I would kinda like to stay here… I think."

"Of course I'm ok with it honey." Mama said with a big grin.

"I would sort of like to stay with Mama too." Said Kaja. "I've never been much of anything but a homebody anyway." Mama patted her on the hand.

"Well it's to war with me, no question." Said Arianna shrugging. "That's about all I know how to do."

"I think that is my choice as well, Patrick. If you don't mind taking me and Ari with you that is." Paige said, blushing a little bit.

Wren just looked back and forth between the group that was staying and the group that was going looking sad and confused. Finally she just sat on the ground and pouted while Lara kept putting a ball in her lap trying to get her to throw it.

"Well before I respond to your request Paige let me say that I report to my new command tomorrow. I will be leaving here and I don't know when I will be coming back."

At that declaration every head in the yard turned and looked at him. Mary was the first to speak up.

"A command… they gave you a ship?! Which one?" she said excitedly.

"The Havock."

"I… don't recognize that battleship." Mary said uncertainly.

"It's not a battleship Mary it's a destroyer." Mary scowled. "A destroyer in need of a crew to be precise. A crew I have been graciously allowed to choose for myself. Which reminds me you don't have an assignment yet do you lieutenant?" Patrick asked.

"No Sir I don't. Are you in need of an Operations Officer?" Mary asked eyes bright.

"Why yes Lt., I am. How convenient. I will see to it that your orders are amended accordingly." Patrick said with a smile. Mary just beamed and took a huge bite of her salad. She went from beaming to shock.

"Oh… my… god…" she said. "This salad is amazing. Where did you get fresh veggies from Mama? And there is no way this dressing can be the rationed stuff…"

"Well Iris did say she's been workin in the garden." Mama said. "She's just unbelievable. These veggies you're eatin are all her work. And the dressing had a lot of help from Kaja." She said with a wink at the cow girl.

"Wait… Iris has only been here for a day or two…" Patrick said.

"I KNOW!" Said Mama. "She makes the plants grow SO FAST! It's amazing!"

"And wait did you say this dressing had help from Kaja?" Mary asked. Mama grinned and nodded. "Does that mean it has her… ya know… in it?" Mama laughed and nodded again. Mary stared down at the salad. "That is really weird but this is so good I'm not sure I care."

"Mary do you have any idea what it would be like to have fresh vegetables and actual milk onboard ship?" Patrick said, eyes wide.

Mary couldn't even speak at the thought for a moment. "It… might make the ward room actually bearable."

"What do you eat when you are on the ship?" Arianna asked with hesitation.

"Canned fruits and vegetables, that may or may not be in date, equally questionable canned meats, powdered milk mixed with cooking oils or apple sauce or other things to cook hard breads. That sort of thing." Patrick answered.

"That sounds…" Paige grimaced.

"It's disgusting." Said Mary. "But it's what's available and it keeps you on your feet so you eat it."

Suddenly Kaja slammed her palm down on the table and shot up.

"That's just not right! This is a crime even! People who are fighting for what they believe in shouldn't be left to eat bad food like that!" She stuck an arm out dramatically and pointed at Mary, putting her other hand on her hip. "Iris and I are coming with you!"

"Wait what?" Said Iris looking suddenly lost.

Kaja turned on Iris eyes gleaming.

"Iris I need your help with the fruits and vegetables! We can make you a garden on the ship where you can live and grow all the plants you want!" Kaja said excitedly.

Mary leaned close to Patrick and whispered "Can we actually do that?"

"For food like this? We will find a way…" He whispered back.

"Just think about it Iris, grains and spices and eggs, maybe even flowers on top of the fruits and vegetables all so I can cook amazing meals for these poor people." Kaja nearly swooned at her words.

"Uh… where would we put all of that on a destroyer? And did she say eggs? Doesn't that mean animals?" Mary asked with a worried look on her face.

"I honestly have no clue." Responded Patrick.

"It does sound like it could be fun but can you really grow stuff like this on a ship in space? Plants need a lot of soil you know." Said Iris.

"There have been a ton of advances in aeroponics lately dear," Said Mama. "I even read a paper by some folks in the navy that said they thought they could do better than what's out there right now."

"Can you send me a copy of that paper Mama?" Asked Patrick.

"Why of course dear." Mama said picking up a nearby pad and fiddling with it a bit. "You oughta have it now."

Kaja clapped her hands together and grinned at Iris.

"So does that mean you'll do it with me?" She asked.

Iris smiled and waved her vines around a bit. "Ok we can go."

Wren suddenly bounced up with a huge grin on her face. "Does that mean everyone is staying together?" She asked.

Paige looked at her and laughed. "We are if you are coming with us."

"Yaaaaaaaay!" Wren shouted. "Can I bring Lara?" She asked hopefully.

"I'm sorry Wren but Lara has to stay here." Patrick said.

"Awwww."

Patrick's brow furrowed and he looked concerned.

"Are you sure this is what you girls want to do? You have nothing in this fight, and this isn't a duel or a one on one grudge match. This is coordinated large scale war in bad and cramped conditions and no guarantee that you will live from day to day. And what will you get out of it exactly?" Patrick asked.

There was silence for a few moments before it was Arianna who spoke up.

"Look I'm not the deepest thinker of our bunch by far, but this isn't hard. First off some of us girls were born in the wild, where survival isn't guaranteed from day to day. We have all traveled around in bad weather, in cramped conditions fighting for our lives often with no warning at all. So here's a news flash for you buddy, we are NOT fragile. So get off your high horse already. And for what we get out of it, do we need a reason to help obviously good people? Really? I don't know of a way to get home, so if you give me a chance to use the only skills I got to make this world better for good people? Well sign me up. See? Not hard at all." She said. There were nods all around from the other girls.

Patrick smiled a little and shrugged his shoulders. "Ok then. So here's the plan then. I report to the ship tomorrow. Mary you need to see 'you know who' and get the girls identification. Take Mama if you have to, in case he needs to be reminded which side his bread is buttered on." Mama just started laughing at that. "Once you have their paperwork in order let me know and I will start the applications for their temporary warrant officer ranks. I know a few people in fleet ops who can help me push that paper through quickly and then we can just have them assigned to The Havock. Once they have their ranks you bring them up with you when you come and I will introduce them to the ward room as the 'secret mission' that we have been assigned alongside our normal squadron duties."

Mary's eyes went wide as the commander described the plan. "Are you sure about this…?"

"Just make sure they are fully clothed and covered in transit. No one, I repeat no one, is to know about them outside of the people here, until they board the ship and once aboard only the ship's crew needs to know." Patrick said firmly. With the decisions made and the plan in place Patrick went back to his salad. Everyone else sat soberly, the enormity of what they were planning slowly starting to sink in.

"This really is an awesome salad." Patrick said with a mouth full of food pointing his fork at the plate.

…

Heather was currently shackled to a stone wall by her wrists which were pulled up over her head, in a building out behind the farm house, without even a hint of clothing to be seen. Her rusty red hair had been pulled forward and draped over her chest, this smallest of dignities given to her by her… captors… masters… saviors… she wasn't sure what they were right now. Her previous bravado was gone like mist in the wind, but her anger and fury at the world and all it had taken from her remained. In this humiliating state she held onto that anger, nursed it and used it to keep her warm in the cold dank room.

Cora came in to find Heather's eyes hooded in the semi-darkness and watching her every movement as she came over to the girl.

"So how is my little ball of hate doing?" Cora asked with a small smile.

Heather didn't respond for a few moments as Cora pulled over an old wooden table and rolled out a green piece of plastic and began laying various instruments on it. Heather eyed the instruments with less fear than Cora would have thought.

"What is this?" Heather asked in a low voice. "You promised me. You promised me amazing things."

"Oh yes I did. I know what this seems like but I have not lied to you and I have not betrayed you. I will keep my promises. But first you have to endure. This is probably going to hurt." Cora reached out and stroked Heather's cheek with her fingers. Heather raised her head to look Cora in the eye holding her gaze.

Cora turned back to the table and slipped her hands into plastic gloves. Then she picked up a medium gauge syringe and began to fill it slowly and carefully from an odd looking bottle. She eased over to Heather and bent down to pinch a handful of thigh flesh. As Heather's thigh was penetrated she winced slightly but made no noise. Cora pushed the plunger slowly, easing the liquid into the muscle tissue. When it was empty she gently removed the needle and put it back on the table. She cleaned off the blood, disinfected around the entry point and put a band aid with a cotton ball over the wound to get the bleeding to stop. She put the syringe in a box, which she firmly shut and locked, pulled off the gloves and grabbed a chair which she dropped into in front of Heather. Heather went back to holding Cora's gaze with no real expression on her face.

"So what happens now?" She asked in a flat tone.

"Now we wait. Don't worry little ball of hate, I will stay with you for the whole transformation." Cora said crossing her legs. "We will even have pet bring us food every so often."

Heather did not respond. She was distracted by the feeling in her thigh. It was hard to describe. At first it was just a warmth, but after a few moments it almost began to feel like something was alive and under her skin, inside her, slowly creeping, crawling, no slithering its way, ever so slowly up, down and around her leg. It was somewhere in the no-mans-land between pleasure and pain, feeling like it was almost pulling at things inside of her leg for which she had no name and at the same time washing those things with a feeling like a cool waterfall on a hot day. The slow pace of the crawling thing was starting to eat at her as the sensations seemed have a sympathetic effect on all of the nerves in her body. Her breathing began to pick up as the thing inside her leg went higher and higher up her thigh. She tried to remember if she had ever felt anything like… Suddenly she arched her back away from the wall and let out a loud moan as the thing finally made its way out of her leg.

"Oh my." Said Cora with a grin. "This may be more fun then I first thought."

…

Jeremy didn't slow down for at least five miles. It's amazing what running from bullies for years will do to a person's constitution. Even after he slowed down it was only to a jog. Couldn't stop… that would mean going back. The streets had stopped looking familiar a while back. He had no idea if he was even going in the right direction or not. He just knew he had to go and find her… somehow. The terror of what he had done and what he was trying to do was just funneled into his legs making them pump more. Jeremy was familiar with this trick. Fooling him into doing what needed doing by pointing himself in the right direction and fueling his legs with the fear of the thing itself. It was stupid, but it worked. And you know what they said about that, if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

At some point he was going to have to consider that he had no idea where Heather was though. He could be running away from her after all, not toward her. He was going to have to stop at some point and actually do some kind of intelligent searching.

While he was lost in this thought he was too distracted to see the girl who came around the corner face down in her data pad. Neither even noticed the other before they slammed into each other at full speed. Belongings and people went flying every way. The girl, a brunette whose medium length hair was topped by the identical baseball cap that Jeremy was wearing, staggered back to her feet.

"What the hell man! Watch where you're…" She stopped mid-sentence as she looked at Jeremy and noticed that he was still on the ground holding his ankle and tears were welling up in his eyes.

"Oh come on! Don't cry! I can't stand it when guys cry!" She shouted at him, which only served to make him break out in full on water works. Grace, for that was her name though definitely not a description, stomped her foot and rolled her eyes to the sky. When Jeremy showed no sign of stopping she sighed a labored sigh and sat down to take a look at his ankle.

"Let me look at it you big crybaby." Jeremy moved his hand a little and she began to gingerly feel his ankle. He whimpered as she did and she just gave him a disgusted look before concentrating on the ankle.

"Well I think this may actually be a fracture buddy." She said with some dissatisfaction. Jeremy started shaking his head. "Well it is too!" Grace said indigently.

"N-n-no. I h-h-have to f-f-f-ind her." Jeremy said with a stutter. Yet another thing to make him a target over the years.

"Find who?" She asked

"H-h-h…" Jeremy tried to get it out but he had started crying again.

"Holly?" Grace said. Jeremy just shook his head.

"Hanna?" She tried again. Still no.

"Harper?" Jeremy just started to cry harder.

"Nononononono, don't do that! Stop the crying already. Whoever it is we will find her ok? Look I'll help, just please for the love of all that is holy stop with the tears!" Grace pleaded.

"Y-y-y-ou'll help?" Jeremy sniffled.

"…Sure. Why not? I don't really have anything to tie me down anyway. We'll just say it's helping out a fellow fan. How's that? Now come on already, we can find a spot and take care of that ankle." Grace said trying to give a reassuring smile while wondering how she kept getting herself into things like this.

…

Malcom had his booted feet up on the desk and was slowly paging down through what may or may not have been some questionable material on his screen at Taylor diligently cataloged what evidence there was from the crime scene. It was just the two of them in the small office area that contained the limited assets this post was allocated. It was dingy and a smelled of wood chips and was warmer than Taylor would have liked, but it wasn't the worst place he had ever had to hole up.

"You did say you were going to pass the word up the line about this right?" Taylor asked, trying to not sound like a nag.

Malcom punched a few buttons on his keyboard lazily and the message from Malcom to his superiors with federal copied popped up in front of him.

"All forms filled out with I's dotted and T's crossed, as promised. I even made a phone call while you were in the back, just cause I knew it would make you happy… nag."

Taylor leaned around his screen and glared at Malcom. Malcom just started laughing. Taylor humphed and went back to his work. Malcom went back to scrolling.

A moment later a quick rapping was heard on the door and without waiting for an answer a rather handsome black haired man in a well-fitting dark suit walked into the office.

"Good afternoon gentlemen." He said smiling pleasantly. Taylor sat there looking him up and down. Malcom just raised an eye brow. "I hope you're both well. My name is Agent Smith."

Malcom snickered. "Yeah ok. Sure it is buddy."

The agent's smile faded a bit. "No really that's my name. Agent Thaddeus Smith Federal Special Investigations. Call me Thad." He said sticking out his hand and smiling again. Malcom snickered again.

"Thaddeus…" He snickered again. The smile fell off of the agent's face. "Look 'Agent Smith' joke time is over ok?"

"You know that Smith is a real name right? People ACTUALLY have the name Smith!"

"Uh huh. It's right up there with 'Thaddeus'. Look we're busy people here, conducting official business. Why don't you come back, the first of never ok?" Malcom said.

"Oh yeeeah, if YOU were any busier some might mistake you for dead! At least he looks like he's actually working!" Agent Smith said pointing at Taylor and his blue plastic gloves. With that the agent grabbed his badge out of his pocket and swiped it across the identification reader and his information popped up on the screen in front of him facing the other two.

"Satisfied!?"

"I think his name might actually be Smith, Malcom." Taylor said hoping this would calm him down a little.

"Apparently it's ACTUALLY 'Thaddeus' too. What the hell kinda name is that man?" Malcom said outright laughing. The agent took an angry step toward the sheriff. Taylor dove in between them.

"SO! Agent Smith, please tell us why you are here?!" Taylor asked trying to defuse the situation.

"You ARE the ones who reported stolen military hardware right?"

Taylor whirled on the agent and put his hands on his shoulders. "You got the report?!"

Smith started at the sudden energy and closeness of the deputy.

"Yes I did and I'm here to assist with your investigation." Malcom just rolled his eyes and scrolled his screen.

…

Patrick had already left for the academy as he was catching an early shuttle up to orbit in the morning. Mary had her head down on the kitchen table feeling sorry for herself. She was no longer in her uniform but in a set of good jeans, matte purple shirt, brown leather jacket, matching purple hair band that kept her hair pulled back from her forehead and tennis shoes.

"Why did he have to order me to go see 'you-know-who'?" She bemoaned.

"There there dear. I think you oughta know that he's kinda gone up in the world so to speak. You won't find him hangin around this neighborhood anymore." Mama said. Mary looked up at that and arched an eyebrow. "I'll getcha the address."

At that the girls all walked back into the kitchen fully dressed, for which Mary was thankful, and in different clothes that their normal. Mama had gone out earlier and done some emergency shopping. Mary looked them over and figured they might even pass for normal… mostly… if it was dark.

Arianna was in black almost from head to toe. Mary thought it actually went rather well with her side over haircut and face tattoo. She wore a long sleeved button down black shirt with a high collar that she left a couple of buttons undone and the sleeves turned up just once. The shirt was tucked into a hard leather belt and black slacks that went down to short black smooth boots with only half an inch heel. Mary appreciated the girl's tendency toward intelligent footwear.

Mary wasn't certain what miracle of modern science was being used to contain Kaja's bosom but something was and she looked nice and modest in a flower print sundress with a thin belt around her waist and flats on her feet. Her tail was inside her dress so it couldn't be seen and her ears and horns were tucked inside a floppy woven knit cap that sat on her head.

Iris was an interesting sight to see as she had taken a bit of special tailoring. She was not enjoying the clothes at all. She looked like she kept wanting to itch herself everywhere. She also wore a dress, of a slightly more traditional cut and in a deep purple color with sleeves that billowed so as to touch less of her velvety skin. She wore a backpack for her bulb and vines and small round sunglasses to cover her odd bright green eyes. Mary thought the purple dress and her light blue hair went well together.

Paige did not give up her long black boots, but tucked into them a pair of black tactical pants. She wore an olive green shirt with spaghetti straps and an old school camouflage jacket over it with the sleeves rolled up to just under her elbows. She finished the look by tucking her ears into a black beret and letting her hair fall naturally down to her shoulders under it. Mary realized that she was actually showing a bit of her pale yellow fur, but because of the color of her skin and the light it wasn't noticeable at first. Mary figured it would probably slide by at night.

The last one to get an inspection was Wren. She was in denim for the most part. She was wearing a denim jacket with grey cloth sleeves and hood that had a faded flaming phoenix painted on the back. The jacket was closed up and the hood was pulled over her head and face to cover her but her blondish hair was pulled out of the hood so that was what people looked at first. She was wearing shredded jeans that looked ripped up but didn't actually show any fur and some converse high tops. Once again as long as no one looked too closely…

"Mama you did an awesome job with these clothes." Mary said. The girls all grinned their approval as well.

"Well thank you my dear. Its amazing whatcha can find if you know where to look." Mama said with a wink. "Now this is the address where you can find him. I have no idea what it'll take to get in to see him. The few times I've talked to him recently he's come to see me. Do you need money for the bus dear?"

"No thank you Mama, I requisitioned a vehicle from the motor pool. It's nothing fancy but it will do the job. I picked it up while you were out shopping." Mary said. She stood up and gave one more glance around the room. She tried not to be too envious of some of the cleavage showing in the room. Her modest chest just wasn't up to that kind of battle. She shook off that thought and felt under her arm for her pistol and extra ammo, then made sure her jacket covered it up well enough.

"Well looks like we're all ready for a girl's night out then." Mary said with a grin. With that the six of them piled outside and into the vehicle.

…


End file.
